Known as Freedom Day, Liberation Day, and also Emancipation Day, June 19 marks when Union Army forces from the north arrived in Galveston, Texas to finally deliver federal orders that slavery was officially ended.
While President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly approved the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1, 1863, slaves in Texas remained in the dark for two years in the Lone Star State.
Slavery was a driver of the nation’s economy, most especially in the Confederate states thus the resistance from maneuvering politicians and the meandering path taken to push the proclamation into law.
From that point on, Juneteenth became a festive annual event for Black people in Texas and across the former confederate states, beginning first in rural backroad communities before becoming the norm in larger cities across the nation.
But on the other side of the celebrations and swelling Black pride will be the work we must continue to do in honor of those lost so that our children and their children will grow up in a world where being Black isn’t a badge of judgment but instead, an announcement to all who dare attempt to silence us will always be met with resistance as we know full well the full cost of freedom.
