Juneteenth is not ’til Sunday, but I’m writing this and sending it out to the world a couple of days early, for here where we live, our Juneteenth celebration is happening a bit early, as well: It’s tomorrow, Saturday June 18, at Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach. The name Juneteenth, which is such a wonderful word, is a portmanteau (itself a wonderful word) of the words June and nineteenth. The day is also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it goes back 151 years to 1865: The Emancipation Proclamation may have been issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, and the Civil War may have ended with the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865… but enforcement of that emancipation took some time. Juneteenth is a celebration born in Galveston, Texas, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived on Galveston Island on June 18, 1865 with 2,000 Union troops. Granger arrived with the formal announcement of the end of slavery, which he read the following day, June 19, from a Galveston balcony:
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.
Newly emancipated slaves rejoiced right there in the streets of Galveston. It took a few years before that proclamation made its way across the vast State of Texas, and, as you can imagine, the news was not always welcome: newly freed slaves were often the targets of violence. Still, by the year that followed that original proclamation in Galveston, Juneteenth celebrations were sprouting up all over Texas and continued spreading, mostly among African American communities, throughout the country. As the years went on, and with the new challenges of Jim Crow and segregation, Juneteenth became a day to gather family, to reassure each other against adversity and challenge. In fact, Emancipation Park in Houston is a fine example of Juneteenth spirit challenging Jim Crow laws: When whites kept blacks from using public spaces, those who wanted to celebrate Juneteenth properly gathered the money necessary to purchase a site of their own, and Emancipation Park is one such site. It is the first public park in the State of Texas. The Juneteenth celebration has been going on there for a week now!
Folks early on wore their finest clothes for Juneteenth parades and gathered to eat good food, barbecue especially. Nowadays the dress is less formal but the celebration endures, showcasing the importance of the contributions of black Americans and African American culture. But even now––or maybe especially now––even after 151 years, Juneteenth is a day to celebrate hard-earned freedoms. We should never become complacent about these things. This year’s Juneteenth celebration at Emancipation Park has been going on for about the same length of time that our nation has had to mourn the tragedy that took place in Orlando. By now, the response to that tragedy has devolved into our usual bickering. We never see things eye to eye here, and this is what makes America what it is. However, it does get disheartening to see such division where one would hope to find common sense, and it is disturbing to see some so willing to trample on the rights of others based on who they are. I’ll leave it at that; I am tired of the bickering and the division, and I don’t wish to be part of it. I’m just here to remind you that portmanteau is a lovely word, that Juneteenth should not be forgotten, and that the freedoms we all enjoy as citizens of this country have been, for some of us, attained only through great toil and hardship.
Image: A photograph of an early Juneteenth celebration in Austin, Texas.
Thank you for this powerful message, John. We need to be reminded that we are indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thanks Dot. Some, it would seem, like to exclude the “for all” part, and I get so tired of that.
Thank you for both writing this piece and sharing it, John. The word Juneteenth has stuck with me since I first met it as a teenager, though I had forgotten what it meant until now. Thank you for reminding me.
You’re welcome, Elizabeth. I first met in Ralph Ellison’s book of the same name.
This should be a far bigger, much more prominent holiday in America. Thanks for sharing! namaste