By Lorie Ham
You may have heard a lot of people talking the last few years about Juneteenth (also known as Freedom Day). In 2021, President Joe Biden even signed a bill making it a federal holiday. It is only the eleventh American federal holiday, and the first to obtain legal observance as a federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was designated in 1983. But do you know what Juneteenth is? Or how people celebrate? It is so much more than just a day off from work.
According to History.com, Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people were freed. Their arrival came two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end of slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday.
The same article goes on to state that slavery had continued in Texas because it hadn’t experienced any large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops during the Civil War. Many enslavers from outside Texas had moved there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery. General Granger’s arrival in Galveston with his troops that June signaled freedom for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. The following year, freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became the annual celebration of “Jubilee Day” on June 19. Over the next several decades celebrations featured music, barbecues, prayer services, and other activities. As Black people migrated to other parts of the country the tradition spread. In 1979, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday; several others followed suit over time.
In an interview with Indiana University, Jakobi Williams, Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at IU Bloomington, states that Juneteenth has been widely celebrated by African Americans for generations. But after the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others that Americans watched at home on their TVs during COVID, activists helped the holiday gain traction and used Juneteenth to celebrate the continued struggles of African Americans.
So how do people celebrate Juneteenth today? According to Wikipedia, many continue to celebrate in the same ways they did in the beginning—with music, barbecues, and prayer services. Other traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, and reading works by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou. There are also picnics, rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, blues festivals, parades, and even Miss Juneteenth contests. Red food and drink, including red velvet cake and strawberry soda, are also traditional during the celebrations as red is meant to represent resilience and joy.
The modern holiday also puts a lot of emphasis on learning about African-American heritage by attending lectures, reading books, and visiting exhibits and black history museums. Some also make a point of patronizing Black-owned businesses. USChamber.com has links to several lists of Black-owned businesses across the country.
If you would like to know more about Juneteenth, a Google search provides multiple resources. Your local library and Amazon.com have numerous books you can check out or purchase, and All Arts has a list of some of the many films/documentaries you can watch.
Let’s all make a point of celebrating this important day in some way this year!
