Juneteenth was a long time coming

On June 19, 1865, Union Gen. Gordon Granger issued “General Order No. 3” in Galveston, Texas, which read: “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 rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection therefore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.” 

The declaration was pivotal. The manumission, or release from slavery, that the Emancipation Proclamation had granted to slaves in the Confederacy on the first day of 1863 was theoretical, and ignored, because those states rejected the authority of President Abraham Lincoln and Congress. Real freedom came as the Union’s armies advanced victoriously through the breakaway states, freeing slaves as they conquered the states of a “nation” created to keep the ownership of humans legal.

Freedom for the slaves of Texas came so late largely because Texas was so remote. Formal permanent recognition of the Juneteenth holiday came so late largely because our nation’s journey toward recognizing how it has treated Black people, and how much that history ripples through our modern lives, is rife with strife.

The United States recognizes 11 federal holidays. The first four were codified in 1870, mostly as an acknowledgment that they were already widely celebrated: New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Each of the federal holidays named since then shares the worthiness of reflecting on what they commemorate. George Washington’s birthday (1879), now celebrated as Presidents Day; Decoration Day (1888), now known as Memorial Day; Labor Day (1894); Armistice Day (1938), now celebrated as Veterans Day; and Columbus Day (1968) all represent weighty contributions and concepts.

So, too, does the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., which was declared federally in 1983 with significant opposition, but which some states refused to recognize until 2000.

Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021 to commemorate the end of a national tragedy, as older holidays’ subjects were being reexamined: Washington and other presidents for owning slaves, for example, and Columbus Day for what it says about perceptions of discovery and the importance of indigenous peoples.

Juneteenth, also known as Black Independence Day, has at the roots of its prominence the sense that the freedom enjoyed by our nation, no longer an English colony, and traditionally celebrated on Independence Day, was shamefully incomplete. That's because the way we treat such stories is often rooted in who has the power to tell them.

The recognition of Juneteenth as a national holiday 156 years after Black Americans began to celebrate that date is an acknowledgment that all Americans have a voice in the telling of our national story, and that the sins of the United States demand attention, just as our triumphs do.