Juneteenth turns into an occasion for rallies, action
NASHVILLE — A traditional day of celebration transformed into one of protest Friday, as Americans marked Juneteenth, a holiday that long commemorated the emancipation of enslaved African Americans but that burst into the national conversation this year after widespread demonstrations against police brutality and racism.
In addition to the traditional cookouts and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation — the Civil Warera order that declared all slaves free in Confederate territory — Americans were marching, holding sitins or car caravan protests.
In Nashville, about two dozen black men, most wearing suits, quietly stood arm in arm Friday in front of the city’s criminal courts. Behind them was a statue of Justice Adolpho Birch, the first African American to serve as chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court.
“If you were uncomfortable standing out here in a suit, imagine how you would feel with a knee to your neck,” said Phillip McGee, one of the demonstrators, referring to George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. The killing has sparked weeks of sustained, nationwide protest.
Former President Abraham Lincoln first issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862, and it became effective the following Jan. 1. But it wasn’t enforced in many places until after the Civil War ended in April 1865. Word didn’t reach the last enslaved black people until June 19 of that year, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas.
Most states and the District of Columbia now recognize Juneteenth, which is a blend of the words June and 19th, as a state holiday or day of recognition, like Flag Day. But in the wake of protests of Floyd’s killing this year and against a backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately harmed black communities, more Americans — especially white Americans — are becoming familiar with the holiday and commemorating it.
As the protests force more and more Americans to grapple with racism in the country’s past and present, some places that didn’t already mark Juneteenth as a paid holiday moved in recent days to do so, including New York state and Huntington, W.Va.
Events marking Juneteenth were expected to be held in every major American city on Friday, although some were being held virtually due to the coronavirus.