President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years before all enslaved people in Confederate territory were told they were free.
Juneteenth, a combination of “June” and “nineteenth,” is a federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. It is considered the longest-running African American holiday.
On on Jan. 1, 1863, known as “Freedom’s Eve,” enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country until the news had arrived: President Abraham Lincoln issued the declaration “that all persons held as slaves” in the rebel states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.
Enslavers were responsible for informing enslaved people, but not everyone in Confederate-controlled territory would immediately be told. The westernmost Confederate state of Texas was the last to announce the proclamation. On June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union troops under Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger informed a community of 250,000 enslaved people in Galveston Bay, Texas, who came to know the date as “Juneteenth.”
One of the earliest Juneteenth celebrations took place at Wheeler’s Grove, now known as Eastwoods Park located on Harris Park Avenue in Central Austin, and was photographed in 1900 by Grace Murray Stephenson, a young, white woman who lived a few blocks away, according to Austin Parks and Recreation. Stephenson later sold her story and photographs to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Today, Juneteenth is typically celebrated with educational activities for children, parades, concerts, beauty pageants and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, Steve Williams, president of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, told USA Today in 2020.
Contributing: N’dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY
