On June 17, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., signed into law the Bill establishing June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.
The Bill was sponsored by D-Mass. Senator Edward Markey and 60 cosponsors. The Bill, unanimously approved by the Senate, faced opposition from 14 House Representatives, many of whom represented states that had been part of the 19th Century slave-holding Confederacy.
The celebration of Juneteenth originated in 1865 after enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were informed by a Union general that the Civil War had ended and they had been freed in 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
“Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned … I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.”
The actual abolishment of slavery occurred on January 31, 1865, after Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was ratified December 6, 1865.
However, news of the Civil War’s ending traveled slowly from the North to the South. In addition, some slave owners did not share the news with the slaves in hopes of holding on to their slaves. As a result, military officers had to travel to Union states and inform them of Lincoln’s Proclamation.
On June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and delivered General Order No. 3:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and 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.”
As a result of this proclamation, more than 250,000 slaves were freed in Texas.
Throughout Texas, great celebrations emerged. The enslaved people celebrated their newfound freedom with great merriment, including elaborate cookouts, dancing, singing, and religious services. One of the highlights of many gatherings was the symbolic ritual of removing their tattered and torn garments they had worn as slaves and throwing them in the river.
Over the years, as Galveston celebrations became more elaborate, Juneteenth celebrations spread throughout other Union States and became known as African Americans Independence Day. For more than 150 years, there was no formal acknowledgement of slavery, one of America’s most horrific human stains, and its abolishment.
The road to Juneteenth’s acceptance and destination as an American Federal Holiday has been a long and untiring one for Opal Lee. Lee, born in Marshall Texas in 1924, a retired educator, has been an activist for African-American rights since her early teens. Lee, as told through her books, television appearances, and public interviews, has witnessed many atrocities of slavery, racism, and prejudice.
At 12, after her family move to Fort Worth, Texas into a predominately white neighborhood, her family home was burned to the ground by an angry white mob. The fire took place on June 19, 1939. The date and its significance propelled Lee to work diligently to bring about a formal recognition of the emancipation of African Americans from slavery.
“The fact that it happened on the 19th day of June has spurred me to make people understand that Juneteenth is not just a festival,” Lee has said.
Lee’s civil rights activism and work has gained her national recognition. She is reverently called the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.”
At age 89, Lee started her symbolic 2.5-mile walks from her Fort Worth Texas home to the U.S. Capitol in support of her goal. In 2017, Lee launched an initiative to gather online signatures in support of making Juneteenth a national holiday. Her goal was to gather 100,000 signatures; however, the net goal was more than 1.6 million.
By 1979, every U.S. state and the District of Columbia formally recognized the holiday in some way. It is also celebrated by the Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles who escaped slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila, Mexico.
Joining members of Congress and Vice President Kamala Harris, Lee, then 96, was present on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Bill making Juneteenth a federal Holiday.
After distributing the pens used to sign the bill to those around him, President Biden said, “I hope this is the beginning of a change in the way we deal with one another.”