What Juneteenth means to me:

The September 22, 1862, emancipation proclamation made slavery illegal in the US as of January 1, 1863, alas it was not a law that made it across America.

After the executive proclamation that all slaves be freed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1^st, 1863. It was not until thousands of union soldiers, primarily African American soldiers, traveled to remote slave territories in Texas to announce the executive proclamation before the slaves in those parts of the United States found their freedom. General Granger read aloud a special decree that ordered the freeing of some 200,000 slaves in the state of Texas Granted, states like Delaware and Kentucky still had slaves freed later that year, and.

Texas slaves were freed in Galveston, Texas on June 19^th, 1865, when soldiers returned from the civil war, a mass freeing, some not freed willingly.

The 13th Amendment, adopted on December 18, 1865, officially abolished slavery. After the proclamation was read, most of the former slaves left the rural areas of Texas to go search for their long-lost relatives in other parts of the United States. The Juneteenth celebration began the following year with simple traditions of prayers and songs.

June 19^th was turned into Juneteenth, and is marked as Emancipation Day, day of liberation, or Freedom Day.

It is a marked a holiday in Texas and we hope all over the USA by picnics, parties, music, and dance. That is took almost 2 years before citizens obeyed the law, made a civilized decision to make all person free. After the proclamation was read, most of the former slaves left the rural areas of Texas to go search for their long-lost relatives in other parts of the United States. The Juneteenth celebration began the following year with simple traditions of prayers and songs.

Juneteenth is not a Federal legal holiday; forty-seven states mark it as a state holiday.

 

Several traditions are specific to the Juneteenth celebration, including public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation and singing traditional songs by African Americans. The Juneteenth flag, which consists of half red and half blue with stars in the middle, is raised in celebration. Other notable ways to acknowledge and celebrate Juneteenth are by having family reunions, community cookouts and street fairs, and supporting African American writers/artists. In many states, events like Miss Juneteenth contests and Juneteenth parades are organized in good fun to further celebrate African-Americans’ strength and culture.

President Biden signed into law June 19th a federal holiday on June 17th 2021 .  "Juneteenth is as significant to African Americans as it will be to Americans because we, too, are American, and it means freedom," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, a Democratic sponsor, said. "It is a journey of pain, brutality, separation and the racist hand of people held in bondage."

To learn more about this momentous day in the history and culture of African Americans, you can visit “The National Museum of African American History and Culture” in Washington, DC. There are also numerous articles online that offer more information and photos of historical events about Juneteenth.