Juneteenth Day celebration: What is it and why is it celebrated on 19 June?

Three years ago, Juneteenth was made an official national holiday in the United States. However, this key date in American history, also known as Emancipation Day, has been commemorated by communities across the nation since 1866.

The Founders of the United States declared on 4 July 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” However, that only applied to part of the population in reality. Over the centuries we and those that came before us have strived to create a more equal union to right the wrongs, one of those being slavery.

Juneteenth and slavery

Slavery was once the law of the land in the United States and unfortunately is still a scourge that still plagues the world today. In September 1862, during the US Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln gave his Emancipation Proclamation, which in word freed around 4 million African-American slaves in the Confederate South. However, it would take much more bloodshed and over two years until that became a reality for the last American slaves held in bondage.

Since 1866, to a greater or lesser degree, the African-American community has celebrated 19 June under several names; Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth Independence Day and Black Independence Day, or simply Juneteenth. That is the day that the words of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the ears of the last to hear it in Galveston, Texas in 1865.

The Union Army enters Texas on 19 June 1865

That all changed forever on 2 June 1865 with the Confederate surrender in Texas. A couple of weeks later on 19 June, the Union Army, led by Major General Gordon Granger entered Texas and read General Order No.3 to the people of Galveston, proclaiming all slaves, around 250,000 in the State, were now free.

General Order No.3

“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.”

The following year, celebrations were held on 19 June 1866 and the tradition has continued ever since. Juneteenth festivities originally included a prayer service, a public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, a feast of barbecued meat, pies and Texan red soda, games, rodeos and dances.

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Emancipation Day in Texas was officially declared a state holiday in 1979 with the first Juneteenth to be sponsored by the State taking place the following year. Juneteenth then spread to neighbouring States and around the nation. However, it wasn’t until June 2021 that Juneteenth legally became a federal holiday - the 11th of the calendar year.

Following petitions from Democrat US Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Opal Lee the ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth’, who headed the campaign to designate Juneteenth as a legal, national holiday, a resolution was passed in Congress by unanimous consent on 15 June 2021 “to recognize 19 June 1865 as the date on which news of the end of slavery reached the slaves in the Southwestern States”. Bill S.475 was subsequently passed by the House of Representatives the following day, then approved and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Thursday 17 June 2021.