Today is Juneteenth, a day celebrated by African Americans for over 150 years but only recently recognized as a National Holiday.
Juneteenth combines the words June and Nineteenth, the day in 1865 on which the last enslaved African Americans in the United States learned that they were free, having been emancipated over two years earlier.
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated that all persons enslaved in the rebellious Confederate states were free. So technically, the enslaved people there were now free. But due to prevailing conditions, word was slow to spread. It was not until two months after the Civil War ended that the joyful news reached the farthest, most isolated corner of the fallen Confederacy.
From 1866 on, Juneteenth was celebrated by the African American community. But it took another 155 years for Juneteenth to be recognized as an official observance.
Truly, it was a long time coming, but on June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
“To me, making Juneteenth a federal holiday wasn’t just a symbolic gesture,” said President Biden at a celebratory concert last year.
“It was a statement of fact for this country to acknowledge the … original sin of slavery. … To remember the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t just a document. It captured the essence of freedom that galvanized the country. It proved that some ideas are more powerful; they can’t be denied. It’s a reminder that the promise of America is we all are created equal in the image of God, and we deserve to be treated equally throughout our entire lives.”
“[The United States is] founded on an idea. An idea unlike any other country in the world, that we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” said President Biden.
“While we’ve never fully lived up to that promise, we’ve never walked away from it either. As the past few years remind us, our freedoms have been put at risk by racism that’s still too powerful a force,” said President Biden.
“Juneteenth, as a federal holiday, is meant to breathe new life into the very essence of America, to make sure all Americans feel the power of this day and the progress we can make as a country.
