Juneteenth marks the anniversary of the announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865 that put an end to slavery in Texas. It has been celebrated annually on June 19 in various parts of the United States since 1866. Originating in Galveston, in the past it was celebrated almost exclusively in African-American culture. It is only recently that it has been recognized as a federal holiday, when in June 2021 President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. It has over the past decade become more widely known in mainstream culture and with its celebration by the Mascogos– descendants of Black Seminoles who escaped from slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila, Mexico–it has become an international holiday.
The traditional celebrations include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, and the reading of works by noted African-American writers, such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou. Some Juneteenth celebrations also include rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth contests. In 2021, Juneteenth became the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was adopted in 1983. The holiday is considered the “longest-running African-American holiday” and has been called “America’s second Independence Day”. The holiday, which gets its named from the combination of June and Nineteenth, is also known as Emancipation Day, Juneteenth Independence Day and Black Independence Day.
“Juneteenth has always been particularly special for African Americans,” said Julian Hayter, a historian and an associate professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “It’s this critical inflection point in the Black freedom struggle.”
In 2020 the holiday became associated with a bitter controversy when President Trump scheduled his first political rally since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States on June 19 in Tulsa Oklahoma, the site of the 1921 race massacre in the Greenwood district. Critics viewed the rally’s scheduling and location as disrespectful and racist and as a form of racial dog whistle to far-right extremists within Trump’s political base.
