Juneteenth
Juneteenth, a contraction of the phrase "June nineteenth," is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans, observed mainly in Texas. Juneteenth is the oldest known holiday to celebrate the freeing of American slaves.[1]
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Second Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all slaves in areas controlled by the Confederacy were now free. News of the Proclamation did not reach slaves in Texas until June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger, the U.S. military governor of Texas after the Civil War, arrived in Galveston and made the announcement.[2]
Juneteenth celebrations include parades, street fairs, speeches, a film festival, and other activities. At least 29 U.S. state governments have recognized Juneteenth in some official way.[3]
It is sometimes incorrectly stated that Juneteenth commemorates the date that "the last slaves in America were freed."[4] Although June 19, 1865, could be considered the date on which the Emancipation Proclamation finally took complete effect (though the Confederate army did not surrender till three days later), the proclamation did not apply to areas of the United States that had been under Union control in 1863. Therefore, some people remained enslaved in Kentucky, Delaware, and some other areas until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, abolishing slavery throughout the country, except for some of the reservations, where it continued into the next year.
- ↑ Juneteenth.com Worldwide Celebration
- ↑ Alwyn Barr, "Juneteenth," in Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill: Univ. of N.C. Press, 1989).
- ↑ National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign, "Vermont to Become the 29th State to Recognize Juneteenth as a State Holiday," press release, March 3, 2008, http://www.juneteenth.us/pressrelease19.html.
- ↑ E.g., National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, "19th of June," http://www.19thofjune.com.