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June 17, 20216:00 AM ET
SHARON PRUITT-YOUNG
It goes by many names. Whether you call it Emancipation Day,
Freedom Day or the country's second Independence Day, Juneteenth is one of the
most important anniversaries in our nation's history.
On June 19, 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, who had fought
for the Union, led a force of soldiers to Galveston, Texas, to deliver a very
important message: the war was finally over, the Union had won, and it now had
the manpower to enforce the end of slavery. The announcement came two months
after the effective conclusion of the Civil War, and even longer since Abraham
Lincoln had first signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but many enslaved black
people in Texas still weren't free, even after that day.
That was 156 years
ago. Here are the basics of Juneteenth that everyone should know.
What Juneteenth
represents
First things first: Juneteenth gets its name from combining
"June" and "nineteenth," the day that Gen. Granger arrived
in Galveston, Texas, bearing a message of freedom for the slaves there. Upon
his arrival, he read out General Order Number 3, informing the residents that
slavery would no longer be tolerated; all slaves were now free and would
henceforth be treated as hired workers if they chose to remain on the
plantations, according to the Juneteenth website.
 |
This Juneteenth celebration shows people riding horses
through Washington Park on June 19, 2020, in Chicago. Natasha Moustache/Getty
Images. |
The people to whom
this order was addressed were the last group of Americans to be informed that
all formerly enslaved persons were now free. The effects of this order would
later be celebrated as the Juneteenth holiday.
But while former
slaves had the option of staying on their plantations as workers, it's perhaps
unsurprising that many did not and instead left in search of new beginnings or
to find family members who had been sold away. "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," the order
reads, in part.
"It immediately
changed the game for 250,000 people," Shane Bolles Walsh, a lecturer with
the University of Maryland's African American Studies Department, told NPR.
Enslaved black people,
now free, had ample cause to celebrate. As Felix Haywood, a former slave,
recalled: "Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes ... just like
that, we were free."
Slavery did not end
on Juneteenth
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Emancipation Day celebration in Richmond, Va., 1905 Library of Congress
|
When Gen. Granger arrived in Galveston, there still existed
around 250,000 slaves and they were not all freed immediately, or even soon. It
was not uncommon for slave owners, unwilling to give up free labor, to refuse
to release their slaves until forced to, in person, by a representative of the
government, historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. wrote in his explainer. Some would
wait until one final harvest was complete, and some would just outright refuse
to submit. It was a perilous time for black people, and some former slaves who
were freed or attempted to get free were attacked and killed.
 |
General Order
3. This June 19, 1865, order represents the Federal Government's final
execution and fulfillment of the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation. The
people to whom this order was addressed were the last group of Americans to be
informed that all formerly enslaved persons were now free. The effects of this
order would later be celebrated as the Juneteenth holiday. National Archives |
For Confederate states like Texas, even before Juneteenth,
there existed a "desire to hold on to that system as long as they
could," Walsh explained to NPR.
Before the reading of General Order Number 3, many slave
owners in Confederate states simply chose not to tell their slaves about the
Emancipation Proclamation and did not honor it. They got away with it because,
before winning the war, Union soldiers were largely unable to enforce the
Emancipation Proclamation in Southern states. Still, even though slavery in
America would not truly come to an end until the ratification of the 13th
Amendment, the Emancipation Proclamation still played a pivotal role in that
process, historian Lonnie Bunch told NPR in 2013.
"What the
Emancipation Proclamation does that's so important is it begins a creeping
process of emancipation where the federal government is now finally taking firm
stands to say slavery is wrong and it must end," Bunch said.
People have
celebrated Juneteenth any way they can
A group photograph of 31 people at a Juneteenth celebration
in Emancipation Park in Houston's Fourth Ward in 1880. Wikimedia Commons
After they were freed, some former slaves and their
descendants would travel to Galveston annually in honor of Juneteenth. That
tradition soon spread to other states, but it wasn't uncommon for white people
to bar black people from celebrating in public spaces, forcing black people to
get creative. In one such case, community leaders in Houston – all of whom were
former slaves – saved $1,000 to purchase land in 1867 that would be devoted
specifically to Juneteenth celebrations, according to the Houston Parks and
Recreation Department. That land became Emancipation Park, a name that it still
bears.
"'If you want to commemorate something, you literally
have to buy land to commemorate it on' is, I think, just a really potent
example of the long-lasting reality of white supremacy," Walsh said.
Nevertheless, black
Americans found a way to continue to celebrate and lift each other up. Early
on, Juneteenth celebrations often involved helping newly freed black folks
learn about their voting rights, according to the Texas State Historical
Association. Rodeos and horseback riding were also common. Now, Juneteenth
celebrations commonly involve cookouts, parades, church services, musical
performances and other public events, Walsh explained.
It's a day to
"commemorate the hardships endured by ancestors," Walsh said. He
added, "It really exemplifies the survival instinct, the ways that we as a
community really make something out of nothing. ... It's about empowerment and
hopefulness."
And there's reason to be hopeful. After literal decades of
activists campaigning for change, Congress has approved Juneteenth as a federal
holiday.
Source: NPR
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