The History and Significance of Juneteenth

As school ends and summer begins, one of the United States’ most vital holidays recurs: Juneteenth National Independence Day, colloquially known as Juneteenth.

Observed annually on June 19^th, Juneteenth commemorates the conclusive enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln’s federal decree freeing all enslaved peoples within the Confederate states. Though the Proclamation went into effect on January 1^st, 1863, Confederate states refused to honor it until forced to by the presence of Union troops and by the 1865 passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery nationwide. At last, on June 19^th, 1865, approximately 2,000 Union soldiers marched into Galveston Bay, Texas, the last state to honor the Proclamation, and declared the 250,000 enslaved Black people living there free by executive order. 

The Origins of Juneteenth

As early as the following year, newly freed African Americans in Texas began to celebrate the anniversary of this emancipation as Juneteenth. Initial festivities were held on land purchased for the occasion, doubly celebrating the holiday as well as African Americans’ new right to own land. Many of these areas remain public parks to this day, including two in Austin and Houston which share the name Emancipation Park. The holiday spread quickly to nearby states like Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, but fell into decline in the early 1900s as Jim Crow laws suppressed Black culture and rights and the Great Depression reduced economic freedom. 

The Decline and Resurgence of Juneteenth in the 20th Century

However, Texas’s continued observance of Juneteenth at its annual state fair from the 1930s to the 1950s maintained awareness of the holiday, and Black Americans who migrated from Texas often brought the Juneteenth tradition with them to states like California and Washington on the West Coast. Despite a decline in observation during the Civil Rights Movement, when activists’ attentions were focused on integration, Juneteenth experienced waves of resurgence through the 1960s and 1970s and became a paid state holiday in Texas in 1979.

The Fight for Federal Recognition

Activism and Campaigns in the Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries

The end of the twentieth century saw significant efforts in favor of the legal recognition of Juneteenth. In 1991, the Anacostia Community Museum branch of the Smithsonian Institution hosted an exhibition titled “Juneteenth ’91, Freedom Revisited,” which featured musical performances and film screenings highlighting Black culture. In 1997, Boston activist Ben Haith designed the first Juneteenth flag, which displays a five-pointed star (symbolizing Texas, the Lone Star state) within a many-pointed “nova” (symbolizing a new beginning).

Though more and more states began to recognize Juneteenth, others resisted, and campaigns to make it a federal holiday gained traction in the 2000s. Opal Lee, popularly known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” led marches and demonstrations in favor of this cause, including a symbolic walk from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C. in 2016. At the time, Lee was 89 years old and had been active in the effort to federally recognize Juneteenth since the 1970s.

Juneteenth Becomes a Federal Holiday in 2021

Finally, after years of campaigns and individual states recognizing the anniversary, Juneteenth was made a federal holiday in 2021, 156 years after the original date. Opal Lee was present as President Joseph Biden signed the bill into law, and she was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Juneteenth is now the eleventh United States federal holiday and the first since the designation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

While the federal recognition of Juneteenth was hailed as a step forward in the country’s continued reckoning with the legacy of slavery, activists continue to campaign for reforms of the text of the Thirteenth Amendment, which states that slavery remains legal as a punishment for convicted criminals. As recently as 2020, politicians in the Senate have proposed and debated amending the Constitution to remove this clause, and civil rights activists hope the momentum of the Juneteenth campaigns will persist toward righting another historic wrong.