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What is Juneteenth and Why Do We Celebrate? | BrainPOP

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Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Robin Coste Lewis, Fred Moten, and More

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Juneteenth commemorates the June 19, 1865 arrival of Union troops in Galveston, Texas-over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation-who brought with them official news of the end of slavery in the United States. Long a day of celebration of Black life and family in America, Juneteenth should become a national holiday not so the whole country can indulge in box-store deals or culturally empty binge-drinking but rather to center the history of African Americans. For too long this country has told an incomplete story of itself, basking in Abraham Lincoln's high words while ignoring the systemic injustices upon which white America has prospered, and which have yet to be redressed. For more on that history, read on below; for a better understanding of the movement to make Juneteenth a national holiday, head here.

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Praise to razed skylines and ruins
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"Abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth countered such racist pseudoscience by commissioning studio portraits and cartes de visite, which they distributed widely on both sides of the Atlantic."

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"Perhaps, here in this country, there is more privilege in the gesture of looking away from Black bodies than the courage and language required to actually look at us."

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Juneteenth Should Be a National Holiday: Readings in Black History and Joy

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Juneteenth commemorates the June 19, 1865 arrival of Union troops in Galveston, Texas-over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation-who brought with them official news of the end of slavery in the United States.

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Resources from Teaching Tolerance

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Each year around June 19, Black communities across the country unite for a family reunion of sorts. Juneteenth activities feature the sights and sounds of Blackness: People enjoying art, music and food that connect them to a shared ancestry and history. They celebrate being their authentic selves. They celebrate freedom in both solemn and festive ceremonies.

This celebration marks a day in 1865 when enslaved Texans learned they'd be free-two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered and ended the Civil War and two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Initially a uniquely Texan observance, Juneteenth has now been recognized in some form in every corner of the country.

There are many ways to teach students about this celebration. Lessons about Juneteenth need to recognize the challenges those who fight injustice have always faced, but they shouldn't be marked only by the tragedy of enslavement. Students, particularly Black students, can find empowerment in the jubilant celebrations of culture, activism and the humanity of a people.

Teaching Juneteenth: Culture as Resistance

Although the truth had been hidden from them-and they continued to face threats of continued oppression, violence and death-a year after they learned of their freedom, formerly enslaved people resiliently rallied around that date and made the celebration an annual ritual. Early Juneteenth observances included a search for lost family members and an opportunity to uplift each other as they moved through hostile environments.

With this knowledge, students can also identify ways the descendants of the enslaved recapture and honor the cultures, customs and practices lost through slavery.

Early celebrations involved readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, religious ceremonies, singing, games and enjoying foods that enslaved people ate. Today, it doesn't look that much different. People retell histories, have family reunions, eat foods reminiscent of early Juneteenth celebrations such as barbeque, attend religious services or choir performances and have elaborate displays such as fancy dress and parades.

Teaching Juneteenth: Understanding Emancipation

That's why Juneteenth is more than an observance of freedom. It's also a time to share the experiences of those who fought- literally and figuratively-to seek true freedom for future generations. It's important that we don't whitewash this history.

A common mistake among those who teach the history of American slavery is to center the U.S. government's role in granting freedom while also placing the onus to navigate through a racist society solely on the formerly enslaved.

Perhaps many center Lincoln in this history because we tend to think of the Emancipation Proclamation, instead of the 13th Amendment, as ending slavery. Our 2018 Teaching Hard History report found that 59 percent of high school students couldn't correctly identify the latter as the legal end to slavery in the United States.

But it's important for students to know that enslaved people didn't willfully accept enslavement or wait for others to free them. They resisted often and consistently. While rare, violent rebellions did occur. Some people successfully escaped enslavement. And everyday acts of resistance, such as breaking tools or pretending to be ill were other ways enslaved people asserted their humanity.

While it certainly encouraged enslaved people to liberate themselves (letting them know they wouldn't be re-enslaved if they escaped behind Union lines), the Emancipation Proclamation didn't end U.S. slavery because it didn't apply to Union states. January 31, 1865 marks the day the 13th Amendment-which officially abolished slavery in the United States-was passed in Congress. Students need to know that there were people enslaved in Delaware until December 6, 1865, the day the 13th Amendment was finally ratified.

Juneteenth offers an opportunity to talk to students about this complex history. When you do, you can also talk about the progress and opposing forces that continue to threaten all of these milestones, even though they're protected by the Constitution of the United States.

Teaching Juneteenth: Backlash to Freedom

American history has often been reduced to a simple story of continuous progress. In this context, the Emancipation Proclamation represents an important turning point-the country coming to its senses and setting the course for concrete steps toward true equality.

But it's important for students to know that the announcement-and the celebration afterward-was short-lived and riddled with setbacks, including violence. For example, some enslavers intentionally waited until the harvest before they announced that the enslaved were freed.

And some people taking advantage of their freedom were met with terror or even death. Newly freed people didn't have protection until September 1865 with the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau, and even those efforts were often thwarted during Reconstruction.

As TT Associate Editor Julia Delacroix points out, "Students tend to think of the fight for civil rights as though there has always been a set list of hurdles to be overcome-slavery, then racial terror, then segregation, then disenfranchisement, then mass incarceration."

But we know that "racism takes the shape of whatever will hold it." Barriers to freedom weren't predestined, but they do confirm that there has always been a force to maintain racial hierarchy by pushing back against change.

In other words, with each attempt to bring justice and equality to all people, there is often a quick and fierce response. With each victory, there is yet another dueling force to conquer. The announcement of emancipation was no exception, and Juneteenth is a perfect opening to invite students to think about the "story of America" they often hear.

Teaching Juneteenth: American Ideals

It's not too challenging to ask students to consider what Juneteenth tells us about our ideas about the United States. After all, another holiday-July Fourth-is in the shadow of Juneteenth. It's a time when Americans are encouraged to rejoice in its independence...and freedom.

Students might recognize a paradox with July Fourth celebrations. They might question how a country could have touted the idea of freedom and liberty for all while also oppressing and treating an entire group of people as property. Those celebrations of independence went on for 89 years before the United States abolished slavery.

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass acknowledged this as "inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony" during his July 5, 1852 speech in Rochester, New York.

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Standford Library Resources on Juneteenth

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Standford Library Resources on Juneteenth

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On June 19, 1865, over two months after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9 th, and over two years since President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all enslaved people in the Confederate states, Union Major-General Gordon Granger read federal orders in Galveston, Texas, declaring that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free. Even with the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of military actions, news and reality of freedom had been slow to reach to the farthest corners of the former Confederacy.Major-General Granger's General Orders # 3, issued in Galveston, and read and reprinted in a variety of outlets, affirmed this reality. In the ensuing decades, the day, which was celebrated as Juneteenth (a linguistic blending of "June" and "Nineteenth") has become a widely celebrated holiday (recognized by the majority of states) and is widely considered the oldest continuous celebration of emancipation.

As the nation honors and celebrates the Juneteenth holiday, this blog post provides links to resources on the history of Juneteenth available through the Stanford Libraries and beyond.

Essays by Maggi M. Morehouse and Graham Russell Gao Hodges in The Oxford African-American Studies Center provide helpful introductory overviews, as well as bibliographies and suggestions for further reading.

Historian Mitch Kachun's 2003 monograph Festivals of freedom : memory and meaning in African American emancipation celebrations, 1808-1915, offers a long view of Juneteenth and other celebrations in African American history and memory.Folklorist William Wiggins Jr.'s pioneering writings on Juneteenth, especially celebrations in Texas, are critical; his essay "Juneteenth: A Red Spot Day on the Texas Calendar," is available in a 1996 collection titled Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African American Folklore. Elizabeth Hayes Turner's essay "Juneteenth: Emancipation and Memory," in the edited volume Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas, provides a rich look at the long history of Juneteenth celebrations in Texas, which are enriched by contributions from the Texas State Historical Association and the Galveston Historical Foundation. Amy Murrell Taylor's prize-winning 2018 history of wartime emancipation, Embattled Freedom: Journey's through the Civil War's Slave Refugee Camps, provides a powerful look at the risks and challenges faced by former slaves as they fled bondage during the conflict.

For ways in which Juneteenth has been celebrated in San Francisco and the Bay area since the mid-20 th century, Emily Blanck's 2019 article in the Western Historical Quarterly "Galveston on San Francisco Bay: Juneteenth in the Fillmore District, 1945-2016" provides an in depth look at ways African American residents of San Francisco commemorated Juneteenth in the postwar era.

For primary source materials, SUL's rich holdings of digital historical African American newspapers, available through databases such as Readex's African-American Newspapers (Series 1and 2)and titles such as the Chicago Defender, Atlanta Daily World, and Los Angeles Sentinel (as well as many others) available through ProQuest News and Newspapers.For the Bay Area, Ethnic NewsWatch (ProQuest) holds a substantial run of The Sun-Reporter [San Francisco] for the late 1960s and1970s, heavily cited by Emily Blanck in her essay above for the Western Historical Quarterly.

For first-hand accounts by African Americans, the Library of Congress has made available numerous transcripts and recordings from the Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives, conducted with former slaves in the 1930s, including this focused blog post on interviews that contain discussions of emancipationand Juneteenth.For more recent oral histories, The HistoryMakers archive contains a rich collection of interviews in which Juneteenth is discussed.

For further video, The Root, an African American online magazine, has produced this short documentary on the history of Juneteenth and the spread of its celebration from Texas to other U.S. states.The Library of Congress has made available programming from the 2015 symposium: The Juneteenth Book Festival Symposium on Black Literature & Literacy. For the deep ties between the history of African Americans and Juneteenth in Houston, Texas, Houston Public Media produced Juneteenth And The Evolution Of Houston's Emancipation Park, a documentary about Houston's Emancipation Park, which was purchased by former enslaved African Americans in 1872 to celebrate Juneteenth.

From the Congressional Research Service, this CRS Report on Juneteenth provides sample speeches and remarks from the Congressional Record, presidential proclamations and remarks, and selected historical and cultural resources.Advocating for the recognition of Juneteenth as national holiday, the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation website provides rich resources regarding both the history of Juneteenth and advocacy for Juneteenth as a national holiday.

Cubberley Education Library holds materials relating to Juneteenth, and African American history and education more broadly, including books for children and subject guides.

Thanks to colleagues, Alesia Montgomery, Subject Specialist for Sociology, Psychology & Qualitative Data, James R. Jacobs, U.S. Government Information Librarian, and Kathy Kerns, Head of Cubberley Education Library and Curator for Education Resources, who helped suggest and compile these valuable resources!

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Resources on Juneteenth at Stanford Libraries

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On June 19, 1865, over two months after the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9th, and over two years since President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all enslaved people in the Confederate states, Union Major-General Gordon Granger read federal orders in Galveston, Texas, declaring that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free.

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Opinion: Juneteenth Is a Reminder That Freedom Wasn’t Just Handed Over

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Opinion: Juneteenth Is a Reminder That Freedom Wasn’t Just Handed Over

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Briana Holt, The New York Times

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The holiday is a celebration of freedom - and a reminder that freedom is still long overdue.

By

Ms. Holt is a culture writer and editor.

An early 20th century photograph of two women in Texas sitting in a buggy decorated with flowers for the annual Juneteenth Celebration parked in front of Antioch Baptist Church located in Houston's Fourth Ward in 1908. Credit... Reverend Jack Yates Family and Antioch Baptist Church Collection, via The African American Library at The Gregory School, Houston Public Library

For me, celebrating Juneteenth was like planning a birthday party or hosting a family reunion. My father organized the first Juneteenth gathering in Grand Prairie, Texas, in 1987 and continued his efforts throughout my childhood, implanting me in the process. Weeks before the holiday, my family and our friends would draft itineraries and search for soul food caterers, trying to create an environment different from the previous year's, to keep people excited about attending, on a tight budget. Some years there were multiple music performances and expensive activities. Other years there were contests with no monetary prize, but every year, no matter how much funding was provided, two themes remained true: community and Texas pride.

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Union soldiers arrived in Texas to report that the Confederacy had surrendered two months earlier and that enslaved people were now free. Texas was the last state to receive the news. In celebration of the long overdue ending of slavery, black Texans come together every year to remember our ancestors and the harsh treatment they endured for centuries. In a red state where white-supremacy groups still congregate and Confederate flags fly from the back of trucks, it's an indication that we are just as Texan as anyone else and our culture has influence in a place that once delayed our emancipation. Juneteenth is a reminder that our freedom was fought for and not just handed over to us. It's the blueprint for the hundreds of movements that followed to further guarantee that freedom was achieved.

And in 2020, during a national outcry for justice, awareness of Juneteenth seems at an all-time high: An increasing number of companies, including Vox Media, Twitter and Square, will now observe June 19 as a permanent company holiday. The day also feels more timely and relevant than ever, a reminder that freedom is still long overdue.

The morning of Juneteenth always began with a parade. Dance teams, high school bands and church groups would showcase their talents while small businesses and local recreation centers drove floats to show their support for the black community. If I wasn't marching along with friends, I'd catch a ride on the back of my grandfather's pickup truck and sit next to my dad. Prince would blast from the speakers while dancing pedestrians followed behind the car. Several people would yell "Thank you" to my father, and I could see that he was proud of his work, and even more proud of the kinship present in his own neighborhood.

The 30-minute route would lead us to the park, where bounce houses, horseback riding, basketball courts and a swimming pool waited for the children. The adults and elders would congregate around the stage or browse through the vendors, debating what makes someone a true Christian and spreading neighborhood gossip. At 2 p.m., lunch was served, led by a grace, carried by guest speakers and concluded with tons of hugs and kisses from people who somehow were related to you. By the evening, parents would trickle off while the older kids would hunt fireflies or listen to the elders tell stories of how much the neighborhood had changed since they were children. And by night, families headed home or to the lake to pop fireworks.

The entire celebration lasted only six hours but had the vitality to keep you feeling warm and loved throughout the summer. It acted as a reminder that there was a community of people who were rooting for you, supported you and wanted to see you succeed. Every time you left a Juneteenth celebration, you took with you new stories, new connections and a new sense of what it meant to be black, but specifically what it meant to be black in Texas.

As I watch predominantly white brands post their Black Lives Matter statements and sift through my emails from editors who finally are interested in my opinion, I remember everything I was told and overheard during Juneteeneth celebrations. "Never shop where you won't get hired" and "Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something" ring deep in my ears as I navigate embedding myself into this movement. I am reminded of history lessons and uncomfortable conversations regarding systemic racism that I heard not in a classroom but instead from speakers on Juneteenth.

Attending a Juneteenth celebration was freeing: I had the freedom to wear my hair however I wanted without judgment, to dress however I wanted without comments and to express myself without microaggressions. All of these freedoms granted to me as a child have molded me into the proud black woman I am now. It's the one day each year that I've been able to exist, unapologetically and unproblematically, in a space surrounded by people who have my growth in their best interest.

In response to the recent killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, protests and advocacy online and on the ground have spread worldwide. From a nationwide plea for justice to the cancellation of "Cops," and now the observance of a holiday celebrating emancipation, our asks are finally being answered. And the importance of Juneteenth is finally receiving widespread recognition. It's also likely that this movement will lose its momentum as businesses begin to reopen and "normal life" makes its return. Whatever might come, I know where I'll be on Friday: celebrating the continued fight that the brave and relentless people before me expect for my generation to carry on.

Brianna Holt is a culture writer and editor in New York City.
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | Juneteenth Is a Reminder That Freedom Wasn't Just Handed Over

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I've celebrated this holiday all my life. It's different this year. By Ms. Holt is a culture writer and editor. For me, celebrating Juneteenth was like planning a birthday party or hosting a family reunion. My father organized the first Juneteenth gathering in Grand Prairie, Texas, in 1987 and continued his efforts throughout my childhood, implanting me in the process.

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From the Library of Congress: Listen to formerly enslaved people talk about learning about emancipation

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This weekend there will be barbecues, pies, home-made strawberry soda, and other treats that have become common features of Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States that has its roots in the joyful celebrations of newly-freed slaves in Texas at the end of the Civil War. It is thought to be the oldest continuous celebration of emancipation and, though it has waxed and waned in popularity over the last 150+ years, it has probably never been as strong a tradition as it is today. Because the 19th falls on a Sunday and Father's Day this year, most large celebrations are planned for Saturday.

On the 19th of June, 1865, from the balcony of the Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, Union General Gordon Granger read aloud "General Order #3″ that carried the message of the Emancipation Proclamation to Texas, and slaves in that state at last learned that they were free. Although the Proclamation was formally issued on January 1, 1863, the news of it had not reached slaves in most of Texas. Union troops then needed to enforce this order throughout a large state, so that slaves were not all released on the same day in Texas - but the 19th is the day that is commemorated. Spontaneous celebrations broke out as the news spread, and these gave rise to an annual events to mark the day. As some of these freed slaves traveled to nearby states to find relatives, they carried the tradition of celebrating June 19th with them and over time it spread to all fifty states.

The American Folklife Center's collections include recordings of interviews with former slaves who were asked about their memories of becoming free. These are from several collections, anthologized in the presentation Voices from the Days of Slavery. It should be remembered that by the 1930s and early 1940s when most of these were documented, the former slaves were elderly, and most were freed when they were children or teenagers. Here are a few examples. [1]

One of the most memorable interviews in which a former slave describes the day he became free is not from Texas, but Skidaway Island, Georgia, where Wallace Quarterman was among those freed in the sea islands shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863. He was interviewed in 1935 and says he was born in 1844, so he would have been about 19 when he was freed. When you listen to the recording, you will hear interviewer Zora Neale Huston ask him, "After they said you can go free, then what did you do?" Quarterman describes the newly freed slaves refusing work for pay on the plantation, preferring to go free. Then beats on a drum and sings the chorus from "Kingdom Coming," an abolitionist song by Henry Clay Work (1862). He then says, "So we had a big big breaking up right there." "The break up" or "the big break up" is what the end of slavery was commonly called in the South. (This is in part 3 of a 3 part recording. The other recordings and transcripts are available in links at the bottom of the record. In part 2 he recalls hearing that the Yankees were coming.)

As a "big boy" in 1865, Billy McCrea, remembered the Union troops coming into Jasper, Texas. In this interview with John Lomax in 1940, He says he will be about 89 in October, so he would have been about 13. He recalls being impressed by the mules and horses, the cannons, and the blue uniforms of the soldiers, as any boy might be. He also remembers his master telling him and his mother that they were free. (This is part 2 of a 2 part recording.)

Harriet Smith tells a story of the chaos and jubilation that ensued as she and other slaves on the plantation in Hays County, Texas learned that they were free from the Union soldiers to interviewer John Henry Faulk in 1941. She says that she was about 13 at the time of the "break up" of slavery. The second part of the recording (at the link) begins with her story of a friend, a girl who was also a slave, who had lost her arm in an accident with sugarcane grinding equipment. She talks about sitting on a fence watching the Union soldiers and their beautiful horses when her friend took off with one of the soldiers and she never saw her again. She talks about her family's decision to stay on the plantation and continue working there. (Part 2 of a 4 part recording.)

Laura Smally tells of learning she was free as a child on a plantation near Bellville, Texas. She describes the difficult conditions for slave children there in this 1941 interview with John Henry Faulk. She was a child when she was freed, she says she was about 10 years old when she and her mother left the plantation. She concludes the first segment of the interview with a mention of the annual celebration that would grow out of the freeing of slaves in Texas. When asked about the Civil War she says she remembers that her master went off to the war, and when he came back he did not tell his slaves that they were free. "He turned them loose on the 19th of June. That's why, you know, we celebrate that day. Colored folks celebrate that day." Later Faulk asks what happened the day she was freed (towards the end of part 4 of this 5 part interview), but she says she can not remember much. "But I, I remember, you know, the time you give them a big dinner, you know on the 19th." Apparently she did not understand what the dinner was for on the day she was freed. "We didn't know. They just thought, you know, were just feeding us, you know. Just had a long table. And just had, just a little of everything you want to eat, you know, and drink, you know. Now, and they say that was on the 19th - and everything you want to eat and drink. Well, you see, I didn't know what that was for."

The process of freeing slaves in the United States was long and complicated, as each state came up with its own method of doing so in its own time, from 1777 when Vermont prohibited slavery until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, ratified on December 6th and adopted on December 18, 1865, finally ended legal slavery in the United States. Common in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states were laws that freed the last children born into slavery gradually, with a plan to release them as adults. The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863 allowed Union forces to free slaves and attempt to recruit them by declaring that they were free. But so long as the war continued, the Confederate states resisted freeing their slaves. The Proclamation only applied to states "in rebellion against the United States," so states that were still part of the Union where slaves were held could act to free slaves or not depending upon the will of state legislators and voters. It did signal that the end of legal slavery was nearing, but there was great variation on how states responded. It is often said that June 19th, 1865 marked the freeing of the last slaves in the United States. It did not. At that time Kentucky had debated when and how slaves in the state should be freed, but had not enacted a law to free them. Maryland had legislation to gradually free the children of slaves over time, and some slave owners had freed their slaves during the war, but many people were still enslaved. Other states, especially on the border north of the division between what had been the Confederacy and the Union still had some slaves legally owned at the time the 13th Amendment became law in December.

Because of this complex history, different states may mark emancipation on different days, based on the release of slaves in that state. Some of us remember studying about the Emancipation Proclamation on or about September 22, as this coincides with President Lincoln's 1862 statement of his intent to free slaves in 10 states if the rebellion did not end by January 1. This was the release of the preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation. Falling near the beginning of the school year, it is a convenient date for teachers to teach students about that history. The actual date the Proclamation came into effect coincides with New Year's Day, while the anniversary of the amendment that freed the last slaves falls close to the winter holidays.

There is a powerful need for many Americans to mark the day when slavery ended in the United States and share that across the nation. The laws and the documents we use to mark great events do not provide such a day. So it was up to the people to create their own day and their own ways of celebrating. The 19th of June is the day the people have chosen. It is a good day for a barbecue and other outdoor activities in much of the country. And so we have a celebration of the people and by the people that is still developing as people decide for themselves how to celebrate.

We at the American Folklife Center would be interested to hear how you celebrate Juneteenth. What special foods are commonly served? Are there activities that you especially look forward to in each year? If you are willing to share, please do so in the comments at the end of this article. If you have photographs of Juneteenth celebrations, consider participating in the My Traditions project. [Project ended 2016]
Note

The presentation from the Manuscripts Division: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains many more narratives of former slaves written down by interviewers. Among the narratives of people who were formerly slaves in Texas is the story of Emma Taylor, who remembers that "One day mars say we're all free and we have a big celebration, eating and dancing." [Item number 420253]

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This weekend there will be barbecues, pies, home-made strawberry soda, and other treats that have become common features of Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States that has its roots in the joyful celebrations of newly-freed slaves in Texas at the end of the Civil War.

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From the National Juneteenth Celebration Museum

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Shortly prior to this gathering, Juneteenth America, Inc., (JAI) was founded by John Thompson, who organized the first National Juneteenth Convention & Expo, and the National Juneteenth Celebraton Foundation (NJCF) founded by Ben Haith, the creator of the National Juneteenth Flag.

In 1997, through the leadership of Lula Briggs Galloway, President of the NAJL and Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D., Chairman of the NAJL, the U.S. congress officially passed historic legislation recognizing Juneteenth as "Juneteenth Independence Day" in America.

The Rev. Dr. Myers returned to Washington, DC in the year 2000, as Founder & Chairman of the NJOF, to establish the annual WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance and to began the campaign to establish Juneteenth Independence Day as a National Day of Observance and an official state holiday or state holiday observance in all 50 states and U.S. territories.

As of 2017, 45 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to officially recognize Juneteenth. The annual Congressional Juneteenth Reception, hosted by members of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, was also established as a part of the WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance.

The Rev. Dr. Myers, as Founder & Chairman of the NJCLC, also established the annual National Day of Reconciliation and Healing from the Legacy of Enslavement on the "18th of June" (www.NationalDayofReconciliation.com) and the National Juneteenth Black Holocaust "Maafa" Memorial Service, which later became the National Juneteenth Maafa Memorial Wreath Laying Ceremony, as a part of the WASHINGTON JUNETEENTH National Holiday Observance.

On the "19th of June," Juneteenth, 2000, Rev. Dr. Myers stood with Congressman Tony Hall (D-OH) as historic Apology For Slavery legislation was announced at the U.S. Capitol during the 1st National Day of Reconciliation & Healing From the Legacy of Enslavement.

Rev. Dr. Myers also established the World Day of Reconciliation and Healing from the Legacy of Enslavement on the "20th of August" (www.WorldDayofReconciliation.com), in Hampton, VA, in 2010.

As the National Juneteenth Jazz Artist, Rev. Dr. Myers also established"June Is Black Music Month!" - CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH JAZZ - "Preserving Our African American Jazz Legacy! " and a series of Junetenth Jazz Heritage & Arts Festivals, concerts, jam sessions and lectures throughout the country. "June Is Juneteenth African American Jazz Legacy Month!", with

The Rev. Dr. Myers is also the leader of the National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign, which is working to pass legislation in the U.S. Congress to make Juneteenth Independence Day a National Day of Observance.

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Shortly prior to this gathering, Juneteenth America, Inc., (JAI) was founded by John Thompson, who organized the first National Juneteenth Convention & Expo, and the National Juneteenth Celebraton Foundation (NJCF) founded by Ben Haith, the creator of the National Juneteenth Flag. In 1997, through the leadership of Lula Briggs Galloway, President of the NAJL and Rev.

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Opinion: Juneteenth and the Meaning of Freedom

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Opinion: Juneteenth and the Meaning of Freedom

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Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker

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When word circulated earlier this month that Donald J. Trump would resume his campaign rallies on June 19th, with an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the confluence of date and location suggested that his typically leaden-handed racial trolling had taken on new levels of nuance. On its face, the choice of Tulsa defies political logic. In the upcoming Presidential election, Oklahoma is neither in play (Trump currently holds a nineteen-point lead there) nor lucrative (it will deliver just seven electoral votes to the winner).

By comparison, Trump trails Joe Biden by five points in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and eight points in Michigan-all states that have more electoral votes and are crucial to Trump's reëlection hopes. But, when taken in conjunction with the date-June 19th, or Juneteenth, the informal holiday on which African-Americans recognize the delayed emancipation of the enslaved inhabitants of Texas-the choice of the second-largest city in a sparsely populated, deeply red state assumes additional significance. Ninety-nine years ago, the homes and the businesses of the black community in that city were levelled, and as many as three hundred people were killed by white mobs in what came to be known as the Tulsa Massacre.

To close observers, Trump's move seemed like a knockoff of Ronald Reagan's decision to speak in Philadelphia, Mississippi-the site of the murders of the civil-rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner-in August, 1980, immediately after he had won the Republican Presidential nomination. (In June, 2016, Donald Trump, Jr., made a campaign stop there on behalf of his father; Trump himself made three campaign visits to Mississippi, where, that summer, he polled higher than in any other state.) But Trump, and whoever in his Administration proposed the Tulsa rally, likely had more contemporary concerns. If the serial protests, the outrage, and the conflagrations of the past three weeks can be viewed as a statement about race in the United States, the rally was meant to be a response. Like Reagan in 1980, Trump is apparently seeking to shore up support among whites who not only tolerate racism but feel that they, in fact, are the group being persecuted.

Yet even this inspired bit of middle-fingering the movement was shot through with Trumpian ineptitude. For decades, even among African-Americans, Juneteenth was primarily celebrated by those who lived in or were from Texas. In recent years, it has been more widely observed, but still overwhelmingly by African-Americans. The Trump team, in designing the Juneteenth stunt, dramatically elevated awareness of the day. Companies across the country have made Juneteenth a paid vacation day; governors, including Ralph Northam, of Virginia, announced plans to declare it an official state holiday. The backlash prompted Trump to postpone the rally by twenty-four hours. In another sense, though, the Administration's actions were entirely apt for a day bound up with the ambivalent history of freedom in the United States.

On June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to deliver General Order No. 3, proclaiming emancipation, the Civil War had been over for two months and freedom, at least theoretically, had been granted two and a half years earlier, by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. (Congress had passed the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished most forms of slavery, in January, 1865, though it was not ratified until December.) The size and the geography of Texas aided slaveholders in attempts to keep those enslaved from learning of emancipation. This was vital to the war effort: Lincoln's edict had been calculated to disrupt the Confederate economy, which depended on enslaved labor. To the extent that Southern whites could keep the knowledge of emancipation to themselves, that labor force could be held in check. The strategy didn't work: news of the emancipation spread, and Confederate states were hampered by black people escaping to the Union lines, with many of the men enlisting in the Northern ranks. The language of the Texas order spoke to the fragile nature of this new freedom; the paragraph that affirms the end of slavery also warns the black population against idleness and notes that unauthorized gatherings at military posts will not be tolerated.

The Emancipation Proclamation itself had been hedged to balance Northern interests and to incentivize Southern states with at least the possibility of retaining slavery if they rejoined the Union: the order freed only those people enslaved in areas of the country that were rebelling against the federal government. But Texas was in rebellion, and its black population did qualify for freedom on January 1, 1863, when the proclamation took effect. Texas ignored the proclamation, as did the ten other Confederate states. This all indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the significance of Juneteenth. The fact that slaveholders extracted thirty additional months of uncompensated labor from people who had been bought, sold, and worked to exhaustion, like livestock, throughout their lives is cause for mourning, not celebration. In honoring that moment, we should recognize a moral at the heart of that day in Galveston and in the entirety of American life: there is a vast chasm between the concept of freedom inscribed on paper and the reality of freedom in our lives.

In that regard, Juneteenth exists as a counterpoint to the Fourth of July; the latter heralds the arrival of American ideals, the former stresses just how hard it has been to live up to them. This failure was not exclusive to the South. Northern states generally abolished slavery in the decades after the American Revolution, but many slaveholders there, rather than free the people they held in bondage, sold them to traders in the South, or moved to states where the institution was still legal. The black men, women, and children who heard Granger's pronouncement a hundred and fifty-five years ago in Galveston were not slaves; they were a barometer of American democracy.

There's a paradox inherent in the fact that emancipation is celebrated primarily among African-Americans, and that the celebration is rooted in a perception of slavery as something that happened to black people, rather than something that the country committed. The paradox rests on the presumption that the arrival of freedom should be greeted with gratitude, instead of with self-reflection about what allowed it to be deprived in the first place. Emancipation is a marker of progress for white Americans, not black ones. Trump, in planning to go to Tulsa for Juneteenth, was not trolling black people. He was trolling the United States Constitution. ♦

Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests

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When word circulated earlier this month that Donald J. Trump would resume his campaign rallies on June 19th, with an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the confluence of date and location suggested that his typically leaden-handed racial trolling had taken on new levels of nuance. On its face, the choice of Tulsa defies political logic.

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Here is a brief video on June 19, 1865.

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This Is Why Juneteenth Is Important for America

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(Link for info behind the Doodle): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipodBEnW9Hk

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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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The First Juneteenth

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere." -General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865

When Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued the above order, he 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. After all, by the time Granger assumed command of the Department of Texas, the Confederate capital in Richmond had fallen; the "Executive" to whom he referred, President Lincoln, was dead; and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was well on its way to ratification.

But Granger wasn't just a few months late. The Emancipation Proclamation itself, ending slavery in the Confederacy (at least on paper), had taken effect two-and-a-half years before, and in the interim, close to 200,000 black men had enlisted in the fight. So, formalities aside, wasn't it all over, literally, but the shouting?

It would be easy to think so in our world of immediate communication, but as Granger and the 1,800 bluecoats under him soon found out, news traveled slowly in Texas. Whatever Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered in Virginia, the Army of the Trans-Mississippi had held out until late May, and even with its formal surrender on June 2, a number of ex-rebels in the region took to bushwhacking and plunder.

That's not all that plagued the extreme western edge of the former Confederate states. Since the capture of New Orleans in 1862, slave owners in Mississippi, Louisiana and other points east had been migrating to Texas to escape the Union Army's reach. In a hurried re-enactment of the original Middle Passage, more than 150,000 slaves had made the trek west, according to historian Leon Litwack in his book Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. As one former slave he quotes recalled, " 'It looked like everybody in the world was going to Texas.' "

When Texas fell and Granger dispatched his now famous order No. 3, it wasn't exactly instant magic for most of the Lone Star State's 250,000 slaves. On plantations, masters had to decide when and how to announce the news - or wait for a government agent to arrive - and it was not uncommon for them to delay until after the harvest. Even in Galveston city, the ex-Confederate mayor flouted the Army by forcing the freed people back to work, as historian Elizabeth Hayes Turner details in her comprehensive essay, "Juneteenth: Emancipation and Memory," in Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas.

Those who acted on the news did so at their peril. As quoted in Litwack's book, former slave Susan Merritt recalled, " 'You could see lots of niggers hangin' to trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom, 'cause they cotch 'em swimmin' 'cross Sabine River and shoot 'em.' " In one extreme case, according to Hayes Turner, a former slave named Katie Darling continued working for her mistress another six years (She " 'whip me after the war jist like she did 'fore,' " Darling said).

Hardly the recipe for a celebration - which is what makes the story of Juneteenth all the more remarkable. Defying confusion and delay, terror and violence, the newly "freed" black men and women of Texas, with the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau (itself delayed from arriving until September 1865), 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.

" 'The way it was explained to me,' " one heir to the tradition is quoted in Hayes Turner's essay, " 'the 19th of June wasn't the exact day the Negro was freed. But that's the day they told them that they was free ... And my daddy told me that they whooped and hollered and bored holes in trees with augers and stopped it up with [gun] powder and light and that would be their blast for the celebration.' "

Other Contenders

There were other available anniversaries for celebrating emancipation, to be sure, including the following:

* Sept. 22: the day Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation Order in 1862

* Jan. 1: the day it took effect in 1863

* Jan. 31: the date the 13th Amendment passed Congress in 1865, officially abolishing the institution of slavery

* Dec. 6: the day the 13th Amendment was ratified that year

* April 3: the day Richmond, Va., fell

* April 9: the day Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox, Va.

* April 16: the day slavery was abolished in the nation's capital in 1862

* May 1: Decoration Day, which, as David Blight movingly recounts in Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, the former slaves of Charleston, S.C., founded by giving the Union war dead a proper burial at the site of the fallen planter elite's Race Course

* July 4: America's first Independence Day, some "four score and seven years" before President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation

Each of these anniversaries has its celebrants today. Each has also had its share of conflicts and confusion. July 4 is compelling, of course, but it was also problematic for many African Americans, since the country's founders had given in on slavery and their descendants had expanded it through a series of failed "compromises," at the nadir of which Frederick Douglass had made his own famous declaration to the people of Rochester, N.Y., on July 5, 1852: "What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity."

The most logical candidate for commemoration of the slave's freedom was Jan. 1. In fact, the minute Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect at the midpoint of the war, Northern black leaders like Douglass led massive celebrations in midnight jubilees; and on its 20th anniversary in 1883, they gathered again in Washington, D.C., to honor Douglass for all that he and his compatriots had achieved.

Yet even the original Emancipation Day had its drawbacks - not only because it coincided with New Year's Day and the initiation dates of numerous other laws, but also because the underlying proclamation, while of enormous symbolic significance, didn't free all the slaves, only those in the Confederate states in areas liberated by Union troops, and not those in the border states in which slavery remained legal until the ratification of the 13th Amendment. (Historians estimate that about 500,000 slaves - out of a total of 3.9 million - liberated themselves by escaping to Union lines between 1863 and the end of the war; the rest remained in slavery.)

Because of its partial effects, some scholars argue that perhaps the most significant aspect of the Emancipation Proclamation was the authorization of black men to fight in the war, both because their service proved to be crucial to the North's war effort, and because it would be cited as irrefutable proof of the right of blacks to citizenship (which would be granted by the 14th Amendment).

No one in the post-Civil War generation could deny that something fundamental had changed as a result of Lincoln's war measure, but dwelling on it was a separate matter, David Blight explains. Among those in the 'It's time to move on' camp were Episcopal priest and scholar Alexander Crummell, who, in a May 1885 address to the graduates of Storer College, said, "What I would fain have you guard against is not the memory of slavery, but the constant recollection of it, as the commanding thought of a new people." On the other side was Douglass, who insisted on lighting a perpetual flame to "the causes, the incidents, and the results of the late rebellion." After all, he liked to say, the legacy of black people in America could "be traced like that of a wounded man through a crowd by the blood."

Hard as Douglass tried to make emancipation matter every day, Jan. 1 continued to be exalted - and increasingly weighed down by the betrayal of Reconstruction. (As detailed in Plessy v. Ferguson: Who Was Plessy?, the Supreme Court's gift to the 20th anniversary of emancipation was striking down the Civil Rights Act of 1875.) W.E.B. Du Bois used this to biting effect in his Swiftian short story, "A Mild Suggestion" (1912), in which he had his black main character provide a final solution to Jim Crow America's obsession with racial purity: On the next Jan. 1 ("for historical reasons" it would "probably be best," he explained), all blacks should either be invited to dine with whites and poisoned or gathered in large assemblies to be stabbed and shot. "The next morning there would be ten million funerals," Du Bois' protagonist predicted, "and therefore no Negro problem."

Juneteenth Endures

While national black leaders continued to debate the importance of remembering other milestone anniversaries, the freed people of Texas went about the business of celebrating their local version of Emancipation Day. For them, Juneteenth was, from its earliest incarnations, as Hayes Turner and others have recorded, a past that was "usable" as an occasion for gathering lost family members, measuring progress against freedom and inculcating rising generations with the values of self-improvement and racial uplift. This was accomplished through readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, religious sermons and spirituals, the preservation of slave food delicacies (always at the center: the almighty barbecue pit), as well as the incorporation of new games and traditions, from baseball to rodeos and, later, stock car races and overhead flights.

Like a boxer sparring with his rival, year after year Juneteenth was strengthened by the contest its committee members had to wage against the Jim Crow faithful of Texas, who, in the years following Reconstruction, rallied around their version of history in an effort to glorify (and whitewash) past cruelties and defeats. When whites forbade blacks from using their public spaces, black people gathered near rivers and lakes and eventually raised enough money to buy their own celebration sites, among them Emancipation Park in Houston and Booker T. Washington Park in Mexia.

When white leaders like Judge Lewis Fisher of Galveston likened the black freedman ("Rastus," he called him) to "a prairie colt turned into a feed horse [to eat] ignorantly of everything," Juneteenth celebrants dressed in their finest clothes, however poor, trumpeting the universal concerns of citizenship and liberty, with hero-speakers from the Reconstruction era and symbols like the Goddess of Liberty on floats and in living tableaux. And when Houston refused to close its banks on Memorial Day in 1919 (only to do so four days later on Jefferson Davis Day, honoring the former Confederate president), Juneteenth celebrants still did their own remembering, in Hayes Turner's words, to project "identification with American ideals" in "a potent life-giving event ... a joyful retort to messages of overt racism ... a public counter-demonstration to displays of Confederate glorification and a counter-memory to the valorization of the Lost Cause."

Strengthening the holiday's chances at survival was its move across state lines - one person, one family, one carload or train ticket at a time. As Isabel Wilkerson writes in her brilliant book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, "The people from Texas took Juneteenth Day to Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, and other places they went." As it spread, the observance was also changing. This was especially true in the 1920s, Turner explains, with the Consumer Age infiltrating black society with advertisements for fancier Juneteenth getups and more elaborate displays of pomp and circumstance.

This did not mean that Juneteenth's advances remained unbroken, however. Despite local committees' best efforts, with each new slight, with each new segregation law, with each new textbook whitewashing and brutal lynching in the South, African Americans felt increasingly disconnected from their history, so that by the time World War II shook the nation, they could no longer faithfully celebrate freedom in a land that still rendered them second-class citizens worthy of dying for their country but not worthy of being honored or treated equally for it. Hence, the wartime Double V campaign.

It is possible that Juneteenth would have vanished from the calendar (at least outside of Texas) had it not been for another remarkable turn of events during the same civil rights movement that had exposed many of the country's shortcomings about race relations. Actually, it occurred at the tail end of the movement, two months after its most prominent leader had been shot down.

As is well-known, Martin Luther King Jr. had been planning a return to the site of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, this time to lead a Poor People's March emphasizing nagging class inequalities. Following his assassination, it was left to others to carry out the plan, among them his best friend, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and his widow, Coretta Scott King. When it became clear that the Poor People's March was falling short of its goals, the organizers decided to cut it short on June 19, 1968, well aware that it was now just over a century since the first Juneteenth celebration in Texas.

As William H. Wiggins Jr., a scholar of black folklore and cultural traditions, explained in a 2009 interview with Smithsonian magazine: "[T]hese delegates for the summer took that idea of the [Juneteenth] celebration back to their respective communities. [F]or example, there was one in Milwaukee." Another in Minnesota. It was, in effect, another great black migration. Since then, Wiggins added, Juneteenth "has taken on a life of its own."

Juneteenth Today

Responding to this new energy, in 1979 Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday. (Ironically, the bill was passed on June 7, the anniversary of Homer Plessy's arrest on the East Louisiana line, as covered in Plessy v Ferguson: Who Was Plessy.) Leading the charge was Rep. Al Edwards of Houston, often referred to as "the father of the Juneteenth holiday," who framed it as a "source of strength" for young people, according to Hayes Turner. (As a concession to Lost Cause devotees, Texas reaffirmed its commitment to observing Jan. 19 as Confederate Heroes Day.)

Since then, 41 other states and the District of Columbia have recognized Juneteenth as a state holiday or holiday observance, including Rhode Island earlier this year. "This is similar to what God instructed Joshua to do as he led the Israelites into the Promised Land," Al Edwards told Yahoo in 2007. "A national celebration of Juneteenth, state by state, serves a similar purpose for us. Every year we must remind successive generations that this event triggered a series of events that one by one defines the challenges and responsibilities of successive generations. That's why we need this holiday."

You can follow Edwards' efforts and others' worldwide at juneteenth.com, founded in 1997 by Clifford Robinson of New Orleans. Another organization, the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, founded and chaired by the Rev. Ronald Meyers, is committed to making Juneteenth a federal holiday on a par with Flag and Patriot days. (Note: They are not calling for Juneteenth to be a paid government holiday, like Columbus Day.) "We may have gotten there in different ways and at different times," Meyers told Time magazine in 2008, "but you can't really celebrate freedom in America by just going with the Fourth of July." You can follow his organization's activities at nationaljuneteenth.com.

These days, Juneteenth is an opportunity not only to celebrate but also to speak out. Last year, for example, reported that the U.S. Department of State leveraged the holiday for releasing its 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noting, "Today we are celebrating what's called 'Juneteenth' ... But the end of legal slavery in the United States, and in other countries around the world, has not, unfortunately, meant the end of slavery. Today it is estimated as many as 27 million people around the world are victims of modern slavery."

As further proof that Juneteenth is back on the rise, this Wednesday, June 19, Washington, D.C., will be abuzz during the unveiling of a Frederick Douglass statue in the famed U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, thanks to the work of D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton. (Douglass will join three other African Americans in the hall: Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther King Jr.) No doubt Douglass would be surprised to learn that such an honor had not been scheduled for Jan. 1 (the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation), but glad nevertheless that the country is still finding ways to remember "the causes, the incidents, and the results of the late rebellion."

Postscript

I grew up in West Virginia, many miles from the site of the first Juneteenth, and I never heard of the holiday until I went off to college. But I have come to see the beauty in its unexpected past and persistence. Besides, June 19 is generally a more comfortable day for outdoor family fun - for fine jazz music and barbecue - than Jan. 1, a day short on sunlight. In my article " Should Blacks Collect Racist Memorabilia?" I quoted W.E.B. Du Bois' summation of Black Reconstruction: " The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery." At the time I failed to appreciate just how apt a description it was.

Of all Emancipation Day observances, Juneteenth falls closest to the summer solstice (this Friday, June 21), the longest day of the year, when the sun, at its zenith, defies the darkness in every state, including those once shadowed by slavery. By choosing to celebrate the last place in the South that freedom touched - reflecting the mystical glow of history and lore, memory and myth, as Ralph Ellison evoked in his posthumous novel, Juneteenth - we remember the shining promise of emancipation, along with the bloody path America took by delaying it and deferring fulfillment of those simple, unanticipating words in Gen. Granger's original order No. 3: that "This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves."

My hope this Juneteenth is that we never forget it.
Fifty of the 100 Amazing Facts will be published on The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross website. Read all 100 Facts on The Root.

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What Is Juneteenth? African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explains the origins of Juneteenth, the celebration of the end of slavery.

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The Daily Show (humor)

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What is Juneteenth? Dulcé Sloan Explains | The Daily Social Distancing Show

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NY Times Overview

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On June 19, 1865, enslaved African Americans in Texas were told they were free. A century and a half later, people across the U.S. continue to celebrate the day, which is now a federal holiday.

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12 Things You May Not Know About Juneteenth

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12 Things You May Not Know About Juneteenth

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There's more than one Independence Day in the U.S. On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and announced enslaved people were now free. Since then, June 19 has been celebrated as Juneteenth across the nation. Here's what you should know about the historic event and celebration.

1. Enslaved people had already been emancipated-they just didn't know it.

The June 19 announcement came more than two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. So technically, from the Union's perspective, the 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were already free-but none of them were aware of it, and no one was in a rush to inform them.

2. There are many theories as to why the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't enforced in Texas.

News traveled slowly back in those days-it took Confederate soldiers in western Texas more than two months to hear that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. Still, some have struggled to explain the 30-month gap between Lincoln's proclamation and the enslaved people's freedom, leading to speculation that some Texans suppressed the announcement. Other theories include that the original messenger was murdered to prevent the information from being relayed or that the federal government purposely delayed the announcement to Texas to get one more cotton harvest out of the enslaved workers. But the real reason is probably that Lincoln's proclamation simply wasn't enforceable in the rebel states before the end of the war.

3. The announcement actually urged freedmen and freedwomen to stay with their former owners.

General Order No. 3, as read by General Granger, said:

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

4. What followed was known as "the scatter."

Most freedpeople weren't terribly interested in staying with the people who had enslaved them, even if pay was involved. In fact, some were leaving before Granger had finished making the announcement. What followed became known as " the scatter,," when droves of former enslaved people left the state to find family members or more welcoming accommodations in northern regions.

5. Not all enslaved people were freed instantly.

Texas is a large state, and General Granger's order (and the troops needed to enforce it) were slow to spread. According to historian James Smallwood, many enslavers deliberately suppressed the information until after the harvest, and some beyond that. In July 1867 there were two separate reports of enslaved people being freed, and one report of a Texas horse thief named Alex Simpson whose enslaved people were only freed after his hanging in 1868.

6. Freedom created other problems.

Despite the announcement, Texas slave owners weren't too eager to part with what they felt was their property. When freedpeople tried to leave, many of them were beaten, lynched, or murdered. "They would catch [freed slaves] swimming across [the] Sabine River and shoot them," a former enslaved person named Susan Merritt recalled.

7. There were limited options for celebrating.

When freedpeople tried to celebrate the first anniversary of the announcement a year later, they were faced with a problem: Segregation laws were expanding rapidly, and there were no public places or parks they were permitted to use. So, in the 1870s, former enslaved people pooled together $800 and purchased 10 acres of land, which they deemed "Emancipation Park." It was the only public park and swimming pool in the Houston area that was open to African Americans until the 1950s.

8. Juneteenth celebrations waned for several decades.

It wasn't because people no longer wanted to celebrate freedom-but, as Slate so eloquently put it, "it's difficult to celebrate freedom when your life is defined by oppression on all sides." Juneteenth celebrations waned during the era of Jim Crow laws until the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when the Poor People's March planned by Martin Luther King Jr. was purposely scheduled to coincide with the date. The march brought Juneteenth back to the forefront, and when march participants took the celebrations back to their home states, the holiday was reborn.

9. Texas was the first state to declare Juneteenth a state holiday.

Texas deemed the holiday worthy of statewide recognition in 1980, becoming the first state to do so.

10. Juneteeth is still not a federal holiday.

Though most states now officially recognize Juneteenth, it's still not a national holiday. As a senator, Barack Obama co-sponsored legislation to make Juneteenth a national holiday, though it didn't pass then or while he was president. One supporter of the idea is 93-year-old Opal Lee-in 2016, when she was 90, Lee began walking from state to state to draw attention to the cause.

11. The Juneteenth flag is full of symbolism.

Juneteenth flag designer L.J. Graf packed lots of meaning into her design. The colors red, white, and blue echo the American flag to symbolize that the enslaved people and their descendants were Americans. The star in the middle pays homage to Texas, while the bursting "new star" on the "horizon" of the red and blue fields represents a new freedom and a new people.

12. Juneteenth traditions vary across the U.S.

As the tradition of Juneteenth spread across the U.S., different localities put different spins on celebrations. In southern states, the holiday is traditionally celebrated with oral histories and readings, "red soda water" or strawberry soda, and barbecues. Some states serve up Marcus Garvey salad with red, green, and black beans, in honor of the black nationalist. Rodeos have become part of the tradition in the southwest, while contests, concerts, and parades are a common theme across the country.

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12 Things You Might Not Know About Juneteenth

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There's more than one Independence Day in the U.S. On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and announced enslaved people were now free. Since then, June 19 has been celebrated as Juneteenth across the nation. Here's what you should know about the historic event and celebration.