are in red. Slave-holding areas not covered are in blue. On September 22, 1862, President
Abraham Lincoln announced that the
Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect on January 1, 1863, promising freedom to enslaved people in all of the rebellious parts of Southern states of
the Confederacy including Texas. Enforcement of the Proclamation generally relied upon the advance of Union troops. Texas, as the most remote state of the former Confederacy, had seen an expansion of slavery because the presence of Union troops was low as the
American Civil War ended; thus, the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation had been slow and inconsistent there prior to Granger's order. While that date did not actually mark the unequivocal end of slavery, even in Texas, June 19 came to be a day of shared commemoration across the United Statescreated, preserved, and spread by ordinary African Americansof slavery's wartime demise. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all enslaved people in the Confederate States of America in rebellion and not in Union hands were freed. By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. Despite the surrender of Confederate General-in-Chief
Robert E. Lee at
Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, the western Confederate
Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not formally surrender until June 2. to take command of the more than 2,000 federal troops recently landed in the department of Texas to enforce the emancipation of its enslaved population and oversee
Reconstruction, nullifying all laws passed within Texas during the war by Confederate lawmakers. The order informed all Texans that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all enslaved people were free: Longstanding urban legend places a historic reading of General Order No. 3 at
Ashton Villa; but no historical evidence supports this claim. There is no evidence that Granger or any of his troops
proclaimed the Ordinance by reading it aloud. All indications are that copies of the Ordinance were posted in public places, including the Negro Church on Broadway, since renamed
Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church. On June 21, 2014, the Galveston Historical Foundation and
Texas Historical Commission erected a Juneteenth plaque where the Osterman Building once stood signifying the location of Major General Granger's Union Headquarters believed to be where he issued his general orders. Although this event commemorates the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved population in two Union
border states, Delaware and Kentucky, would not come until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified. The federal amendment also put a definitive end to chattel slavery and indentured servitude in New Jersey, freeing approximately 16 elderly individuals. Furthermore, thousands of black slaves were not freed until after the
Reconstruction Treaties of late 1866, when the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes were forced to sign new treaties that required them to free their slaves. The freedom of formerly enslaved people in Texas was given state law status in a series of
Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874. File:Gordon Granger - Brady-Handy.jpg|Major General
Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 formally informing Texas residents that slavery had ended. File:General order No. 3 of June 19, 1865.jpg|
General Order No. 3, June 19, 1865
Early Juneteenth celebrations Formerly enslaved people in Galveston rejoiced after General Order No. 3. One year later, on June 19, 1866,
freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became annual commemorations of "Jubilee Day". Other independence observances occurred on January 1 or 4. In some cities, Black people were barred from using public parks because of state-sponsored
segregation of facilities. Across parts of Texas, freed people pooled their funds to purchase land to hold their celebrations. The day was first celebrated in Austin in 1867 under the auspices of the
Freedmen's Bureau, and it had been listed on a "calendar of public events" by 1872. That year, Black leaders in Texas raised $1,000 for the purchase of of land, today known as Houston's
Emancipation Park, to celebrate Juneteenth. The observation was soon drawing thousands of attendees across Texas. In
Limestone County, an estimated 30,000 Black people celebrated at Booker T. Washington Park, established in 1898 for Juneteenth celebrations. The Black community began using the word
Juneteenth for Jubilee Day early in the 1890s. Mentions of Juneteenth celebrations outside of Texas appeared as early as 1909 in
Shreveport, Louisiana.
Decline of celebrations during the Jim Crow era In the early 20th century, economic and political forces led to a decline in Juneteenth celebrations. From 1890 to 1908, Texas and all former Confederate states passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively
disenfranchised Black people, excluding them from the political process. White-dominated state legislatures passed
Jim Crow laws imposing second-class status. Gladys L. Knight writes the decline in celebration was in part because "upwardly mobile blacks ... were ashamed of their slave past and aspired to
assimilate into mainstream culture. Younger generations of blacks, becoming further removed from slavery were occupied with school ... and other pursuits." Others who migrated to the
Northern United States could not take time off or simply dropped the celebration. The
Great Depression forced many Black people off farms and into the cities to find work, where they had difficulty taking the day off to celebrate. From 1936 to 1951, the
Texas State Fair served as a destination for celebrating the holiday, contributing to its revival. In 1936, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people joined the holiday's celebration in Dallas. In 1938, Governor of Texas
James Allred issued a proclamation stating in part: Seventy thousand people attended a "Juneteenth Jamboree" in 1951. In 1945, Juneteenth was introduced in San Francisco by a migrant from Texas, Wesley Johnson. During the 1950s and 1960s, the
Civil Rights Movement focused the attention of African Americans on expanding freedom and integrating. As a result, observations of the holiday declined again, though it was still celebrated in Texas. In 1974, Houston began holding large-scale celebrations again, In the late 1980s, there were major celebrations of Juneteenth in California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. reading General Order No. 3 from the second-story balcony of the home. The Emancipation Proclamation is also read and speeches are made. Representative Al Edwards died of natural causes April 29, 2020, at the age of 83, but the annual prayer breakfast and commemorative celebration continued at Ashton Villa, with the late legislator's son Jason Edwards speaking in his father's place.
Official statewide recognitions In the late 1970s, when the
Texas Legislature declared Juneteenth a "holiday of significance ... particularly to the blacks of Texas", it became the first state to establish Juneteenth as a state holiday. The bill passed through the Texas Legislature in 1979 and was officially made a state holiday on January 1, 1980. During the 1980s and 1990s, the holiday became more widely celebrated among African-American communities across the country and received increasing mainstream attention.
Juneteenth in pop culture and the mass media Ralph Ellison's 1965 short story "Juneteenth" in the
Quarterly Review of Literature, an excerpt from his novel in progress of the same name, brought the holiday to more widespread attention. In 1991, there was an exhibition by the
Anacostia Community Museum (part of the
Smithsonian Institution) called "Juneteenth '91, Freedom Revisited". In 1994, a group of community leaders gathered at Christian Unity Baptist Church in
New Orleans to work for greater national celebration of Juneteenth. International awareness arose as expatriates and U.S. military bases overseas celebrated Juneteenth in cities abroad, such as Paris. In 1999,
Ralph Ellison's novel
Juneteenth was posthumously published, increasing recognition of the holiday. By 2006, at least 200 cities across the United States celebrated the day. The holiday gained mainstream awareness outside African-American communities through depictions in media, such as episodes of TV series
Atlanta (2016) and
Black-ish (2017), the latter of which featured musical numbers about the holiday by
Aloe Blacc,
The Roots, and
Fonzworth Bentley. In 2018,
Apple added Juneteenth to its calendars in
iOS under official U.S. holidays. Private companies began to adopt Juneteenth as a paid day off for employees, while others officially marked the day in ceremonial ways, such as holding a
moment of silence. In 2020, additional American corporations and educational institutions, including
Twitter, the
National Football League,
Nike, began treating Juneteenth as a company holiday, providing a paid day off to their workers, and
Google Calendar added Juneteenth to its U.S. Holidays calendar. Also in 2020, a number of major universities formally recognized Juneteenth, either as a "day of reflection" or as a university holiday with paid time off for faculty and staff.
Becoming a federal holiday is third from left. In 1996, the first federal legislation to recognize "Juneteenth Independence Day" was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 195, sponsored by
Barbara-Rose Collins (D-MI). In 1997, Congress recognized the day through Senate Joint Resolution 11 and House Joint Resolution 56. In 2013, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Resolution 175, acknowledging Lula Briggs Galloway (late president of the National Association of Juneteenth Lineage), who "successfully worked to bring national recognition to Juneteenth Independence Day", and the continued leadership of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation. , 2019In the 2000s and 2010s, activists continued a long process to push Congress towards official recognition of Juneteenth. Organizations such as the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation sought a Congressional designation of Juneteenth as a national day of observance. campaigned for decades to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, leading walks in many states to promote the idea. In 2016–17 at the age of 89, she led a symbolic walk from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington D.C. to advocate for the federal holiday. When it was officially made a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, she was standing beside President
Joe Biden as he signed the bill. Juneteenth also falls within the statutory
Honor America Days period, which lasts for 21 days from
Flag Day (June 14) to
Independence Day (July 4). == The Juneteenth Flag ==