June 19, 1865,
marked the end of slavery in the U.S., and recognition of the date is
spreading.
On June 19,
1865, a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas, to make an important
announcement: Slavery had been abolished in the U.S., including in Texas, which
was the last state practicing it.
That officer,
Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, “had no idea that, in establishing the Union Army’s
authority over the people of Texas, he was also establishing the basis for a
holiday, ‘Juneteenth’ (‘June’ plus ‘nineteenth’), today the most popular annual
celebration of emancipation from slavery in the United States,” historian Henry
Louis Gates Jr. wrote in an essay published a few years ago on The Root and
PBS.org.
Many
Americans, especially Black Americans, have been aware of Juneteenth and have
been celebrating it for more than a century. But some of us, no matter our
race, could use an introduction to or refresher on the date’s significance,
especially now that President Joe Biden signed a bill into law last year declaring it a
federal holiday. That means most federal employees will get Monday off in 2022,
as June 19 falls on a Sunday, and many private employers are observing the day
as well.
"Throughout
history, Juneteenth has been known by many names: Jubilee Day, Freedom Day,
Liberation Day, Emancipation Day, and today, a national holiday," Vice
President Kamala Harris, the first woman, first Asian-American, and first Black
person to be vice president, said at the signing ceremony last year.
"We are
gathered here in a house built by enslaved people. We are footsteps away from
where President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. We have
come far, and we have far to go. But today is a day of celebration. It is not
only a day of pride. It's also a day for us to reaffirm and rededicate
ourselves to action."
So, to help
readers rededicate themselves, here's how Juneteenth came about.
The news of
slavery’s end reached Texas, well, late. President Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, and it took effect on January
1, 1863, freeing those enslaved in all states that had seceded and joined the
Confederacy — not that it was possible to enforce it universally, as the Civil
War would continue nearly two and a half years longer. Gen. Robert E. Lee, the
top Confederate commander, surrendered in April 1865, but Confederate forces in
the west kept on fighting, finally surrendering June 2. By then, many
Southerners had brought their slaves to Texas, considered out of the reach of
the Union Army.
After Granger
announced that all enslaved people in Texas were free and that there would be
“an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former
masters and slaves,” life was still brutal for Black people in the state, as it
was elsewhere in the South and much of the North. Some Texas slaveholders
didn’t deliver the news to the people they held in bondage or simply failed to
treat them as free, even though Granger’s proclamation said former slaves
should be considered “hired labor” and paid wages. African-Americans who left
their former masters were often hunted down and killed.
“Hardly the
recipe for a celebration — which is what makes the story of Juneteenth all the
more remarkable,” Gates wrote. “Defying confusion and delay, terror and
violence, the newly ‘freed’ black men and women of Texas … now had a date to
rally around. In one of the most inspiring grassroots efforts of the post-Civil
War period, they transformed June 19 from a day of unheeded military orders
into their own annual rite, ‘Juneteenth,’ beginning one year later in 1866.”
Juneteenth
celebrations became a fixture in Texas over the succeeding years, with celebrants
dressing in their finest clothes and gathering for a feast along with games,
religious services, speeches, and political organizing. When white officials
banned access to certain public parks, Black residents established their own
spaces.
African-Americans
in other parts of the U.S. sometimes celebrated emancipation on other milestone
dates — September 22 or January 1 for the Emancipation Proclamation, January 31
for Congress’s passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, abolishing slavery
throughout the nation (a few states that allowed slavery had not seceded and
were therefore not affected by the Emancipation Proclamation), or a few other
dates. But as Black Texans migrated to other states, they brought the
Juneteenth tradition with them — plus the date was one that usually promised
good weather for outdoor events.
Juneteenth
observances waned somewhat by the mid-20th century, as a romanticized, hugely
inaccurate view of the antebellum South had spread through the nation, racist
laws and attitudes endured, and African-Americans “felt increasingly
disconnected from their history,” according to Gates.
But as history
marched on in the 1960s, with both progress and tragedy, interest in Juneteenth
was renewed. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been planning a Poor People’s
March, highlighting class inequality, at the time of his assassination in April
1968. His colleagues went ahead with the plan, but the march was not as large
as they had hoped, so they ended it ahead of schedule — on June 19, 1968. That
brought new attention to the date’s significance, and since then Juneteenth has
been celebrated widely.
Texas passed a
bill in 1979 making it a state holiday; the bill’s champion was Rep. Al
Edwards, who became known as “Mr. Juneteenth.” He died in April 2020. More than 40 other states and the
District of Columbia have since given Juneteenth some form of
recognition.
Last year,
when the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police and others put a
focus on systemic racism in the U.S., Juneteenth became particularly
significant. Marches and demonstrations, both to celebrate the day and protest
racial inequality, took place in just about every major city in the nation and
many smaller ones. Observances are continuing around the U.S. this year; check
your local newspaper or its online edition.
And you can
definitely use the day to learn some history on your own (but keep up your
studies after the day is over!) with works about African-American history and
culture, and websites such as Juneteenth.com and NationalJuneteenth.com. There’s
a curated list of scholarly articles on Juneteenth at Daily.JSTOR.org. Jamelle Bouie has an excellent New York Times column on the central role
of enslaved African-Americans in winning their own freedom.
Juneteenth.com
also features the official Juneteenth poem, “We Rose,” written by Kristina Kay
Robinson:
From Africa’s
heart, we rose
Already a people, our faces ebon, our bodies lean,
We rose
Skills of art, life, beauty and family
Crushed by forces we knew nothing of, we rose
Survive we must, we did,
We rose
We rose to be you, we rose to be me,
Above everything expected, we rose
To become the knowledge we never knew,
We rose
Dream, we did
Act we must
And below is a
video Google Doodle from last year, featuring LeVar Burton and the poem “Lift
Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson, with illustrations by artist
Loveis Wise.
SOURCE: ADVOCATE
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