Celebrating Juneteenth 2021!

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

A historic June Nineteenth 2021, since this is the first year that Juneteenth is recognized as a federal holiday in the United States. A day celebrated for more than 1.5 centuries in the Black-American community, variously as the other Independence Day, Freedom Day, Emancipation Day or Liberation Day, that the Biden administration just signed into law, on June 17, 2021.

Going forward everyone will have an opportunity to celebrate Juneteenth. Everyone will have an opportunity to find out about June 19th, 1865. The day, when two years after Abraham’s Lincoln’s (draft) Proclamation of Emancipation, on January 1, 1863, all the residents of such slave-owner-safe states as Texas, including those Black-Americans still enslaved, and their owners, were publicly informed that slavery had ended. Information provided in the form of military Orders, such as those issued by Major General Granger, in Galveston, Texas on June 19th, 1865, as follows (1):

Juneteenth 1865, just shy of December 6th, 1865, when the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, formally abolishing slavery across the United States. (National Constitution Center, Transcript 13th Amendment)

A time to celebrate, not only an important milestone in the long history of Black-American liberation, but most importantly, the promise of a better future that such a celebration holds. As President Biden put it, echoing former President Obama's notion of an imperfect Union:

To honor the true meaning of Juneteenth, we have to continue toward that promise because we’ve not gotten there yet. (Biden, June 17, 2021)

No longer the other Independence Day, by comparison to July 4th, celebrating Independence from Great Britain, Juneteenth has finally become recognized in its own right.  A celebration of emancipation, perceived as the true Independence of the Black American community of the United States, living in complete bondage, subjugated by slave-owners, during the 18th and 19th century.

Happy Juneteenth everyone!

Juneteenth (2010) 
© Synthia Saint-James (2)

Notes

(1) Major-General Granger's Orders #3, cited in  Staff, National Consitution Center, 2020

(2) Synthia Sant-James, renowned Black-American artist and author, designed the first Kwanzaa stamp for the United States Postal Service (USPS), first issued in 1997. Saint-James then also designed the Forever Kwanzaa USPS stamp, in 2016. 

References

Biden, J. (June 17, 2021) Remarks by President Biden at signing of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.   https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/06/17/remarks-by-president-biden-at-signing-of-the-juneteenth-national-independence-day-act/

Juneteenth: Our other independence Day   https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/juneteenth-our-other-independence-day-16340952/

Lincoln, A. (Jan. 1, 1863) Proclamation of Emancipation. Transcript in PDF format. Library of Congress. https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mal/172/1723200/1723200.pdf

McKenzie, J-Ph. (June 17, 2021) What is Juneteenth? The historic day is finally a federal holiday. Here’s why we honor June 19^th. https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a32893726/what-is-juneteenth/

Staff (June 18, 2020) Juneteenth: Understanding its origins. National Constitution Center (NCC) https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/juneteenth-understanding-its-origins

Synthia Saint-James http://synthiasaintjames.com/gallery.html

Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution - Abolition of Slavery [Transcript]   https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiii