Juneteenth named federal holiday
In September of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The decree went into effect January 1, 1863, legally freeing all slaves – some 3.5 million - in the Confederacy. Of course, those southern states were, at the time, engaged in a fierce Civil War against the northern United States and weren’t inclined to obey such an order.
Most of those slaves were actually set free when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 9, 1865.
Just six days after Lee’s surrender, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. More than 250,000 people were still enslaved in Texas, and would remain so in fact for another two months.
Many southern farmers and plantation owners had moved west to the state to escape the worst of the Civil War’s violence, and brought their slaves with them. The fact that Texas had only been a state since 1845 and was still almost completely rural made it easy for slave owners to keep their human property in the dark about their new freedom.
June 19, 1865, two and a half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived with his forces by ship in Galveston to set matters straight.
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free,” stated Gen. Gordon’s General Order No. 3. “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 event became known as “Juneteenth,” a portmanteau word combining June and Nineteenth, the date of the proclamation.
Of course Gordon’s mere words did not put all to rights immediately. Outside Texas, slavery remained legal in border states Delaware and Kentucky for six months following Juneteenth, only ending once the 13th Amendment was ratified on Dec. 6, 1865.
Additionally, many former Texas slave owners illegally refused to free their slaves until late in 1865. Granger’s proclamation spelled the end of legal slavery in Texas, however.
Upon hearing the proclamation, many slaves immediately left their former masters’ property, even if they were offered paid employment as indicated in Gordon’s order.
Annual celebrations commemorating the Juneteenth proclamation began the year after it was issued. On June 19, 1866, former slaves it freed organized what would become the first annual Juneteenth celebration, at the time called “Jubilee Day.” Early celebrations were used as opportunities for political rallies or to give newly freed slaves instructions on how to vote.
Of course, Juneteenth didn’t end racial discrimination in the former Confederacy. Some locations prohibited Juneteenth celebrants from using public parks due to state-sanctioned segregation laws. The prohibition didn’t stop the celebrations: Freed people pooled their funds and purchased land to hold the celebrations. In Houston in 1872, freed slaves raised $1,000 and purchased 10 acres of land as a site for the celebration. The area is now known as Emancipation Park, and is the oldest still-existing park in the city.
Today, many states recognize Juneteenth in some way. Fortyseven states plus the District of Columbia recognize the date, although Texas was the only state to recognize it as an official state holiday.
On June 17 of this year, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.