Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of ending slavery in the United States. It is also called Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day. Juneteenth is a bittersweet holiday of celebration for many African Americans, a de facto second Independence Day commemorating the end of slavery.

 

Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19 that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that enslaved people were freed two and a half years earlier with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official on January 1, 1863, yet slavery had continued! There are several versions of the story as to why it took two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation for this important news to reach Texas- the messenger was murdered, information was deliberately withheld to keep the slave labor force on the plantations, and yet another story that enslavers wanted to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest.

 

The important order read to the people of Texas by Major General Gordon Granger began with, “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 rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.”