What is Juneteenth and why is it a holiday?
2023 will be the second year Juneteenth is celebrated as a federal holiday in the US, but how and when did it start, and what does it mean today?
This upcoming weekend, people throughout the United States will be celebrating Juneteenth, also called Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day. Juneteenth became a public holiday in 2021, meaning that this will be the second year it is celebrated. This year, Juneteenth falls on a Monday, which implies that several public workers will enjoy a three-day weekend.
When did Juneteenth become a federal holiday?
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 June 19 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.
The origins of Juneteenth
While for many in the US, 2023 marks the second year that Juneteenth is celebrated at the federal level, the day has been commemorated to lesser or greater degrees, since 1866. Its history dates back to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation three years earlier in September 1862 – the president’s order changed federal laws to effectively free around four million African-American slaves.
However, when Lincoln issued the preliminary order to free all of the men, women and children who had been held in slavery, the country was still involved in a Civil War – and the law applied only to slaves held in the Confederate slave States of the South. The free states (Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York… etc) had technically abolished slavery much earlier (Congress had outlawed the slave trade in 1808) but millions of Black people continued to be enslaved in Southern states where the economy was dependent on free labor.
19 June 1865: The Union Army enters Texas
That however, all changed on 2 June 1865 following the Confederate surrender in Texas. Two 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, declaring that all slaves (around 250,000) in the State, were now free.
General Order No.3
Union General Gordon Grange issued General Order No.3 on 19 June 1865 in Galveston, Texas and it appeared the following day in the local newspaper, the Galveston Tri-Weekly News: “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.”
In 1866, June 19th marked the beginning of a tradition that continues to this day. The celebrations originally consisted of a prayer service, a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, a feast featuring barbecued meat, pies, and Texan red soda, as well as games, rodeos, and dances.
January 1980: Juneteenth was declared a state holiday in Texas
Emancipation Day, marking the end of slavery has been a state-sponsored holiday in Texas since 1980. Democratic Houston legislator Al Edwards drew up and submitted House Bill H.B. 1016-126 to Chief Clerk Betty Murray in February 1979. The bill was passed by the Senate and signed by Governor William P. Clements on 7 June 1979 and became effective as of 1 January 1980.
Other states followed suit, but it wasn’t until June 2021 that Juneteenth legally became a federal holiday - the 12th of the calendar year. South Dakota became the last state to make 19 June a legal holiday in February of this year. As for most of the rest of the country, all federal government offices, courts, banks, post offices, schools, and financial markets will be closed. Many private employers are following suit, although they are not legally required to give employees time off.