What is Juneteenth, and why is it important? - Karlos K. Hill and Soraya Field Fiorio
One day, while hiding in the kitchen,
Charlotte Brooks overheard
a life-changing secret.
At the age of 17, she’d been
separated from her family
and taken to William Neyland’s
Texas Plantation.
There, she was made to do housework
at the violent whims of her enslavers.
On that fateful day, she learned that
slavery had recently been abolished,
but Neyland conspired to keep
this a secret from those he enslaved.
Hearing this, Brooks stepped out of her
hiding spot, proclaimed her freedom,
spread the news throughout the plantation,
and ran.
That night, she returned
for her daughter, Tempie.
And before Neyland’s spiteful bullets
could find them, they were gone for good.
For more than two centuries,
slavery defined what would become
the United States—
from its past as the 13 British colonies
to its growth as an independent country.
Slavery fueled its cotton industry
and made it a leading economic power.
10 of the first 12 presidents
enslaved people.
And when US chattel slavery finally ended,
it was a long and uneven process.
Enslaved people resisted
from the beginning—
by escaping, breaking tools,
staging rebellions, and more.
During the American Revolution, Vermont
and Massachusetts abolished slavery
while several states took steps
towards gradual abolition.
In 1808, federal law banned the import
of enslaved African people,
but it allowed the slave trade
to continue domestically.
Approximately 4 million people
were enslaved in the US
when Abraham Lincoln was
elected president in 1860.
Lincoln opposed slavery,
and though he had no plans to outlaw it,
his election caused panic
in Southern states,
which began withdrawing from the Union.
they vowed to uphold slavery
and formed the Confederacy,
triggering the start
of the American Civil War.
A year into the conflict, Lincoln
abolished slavery in Washington, D.C.,
legally freeing more than 3,000 people.
And five months later, he announced
the Emancipation Proclamation.
It promised freedom to the 3.5 million
people enslaved in Confederate states.
But it would only be fulfilled if the
rebelling states didn’t rejoin the Union
by January 1st, 1863.
And it bore no mention of the roughly
500,000 people in bondage
in the border states of Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri
that hadn’t seceded.
When the Confederacy refused to surrender,
Union soldiers began
announcing emancipation.
But many Southern areas remained
under Confederate control,
making it impossible to actually implement
abolition throughout the South.
The war raged on for two more years,
and on January 31st, 1865,
Congress passed the 13th Amendment.
It promised to end slavery
throughout the US—
except as punishment for a crime.
But to go into effect, 27 states
would have to ratify it first.
Meanwhile, the Civil War
virtually ended with the surrender
of Confederate General Robert E. Lee
on April 9th, 1865.
But although slavery was technically
illegal in all Southern states,
it still persisted in the last
bastions of the Confederacy.
There, enslavers like Neyland continued
to evade abolition until forced.
This was also the case when Union General
Gordon Granger marched his troops
into Galveston, Texas, on June 19th
and announced that all enslaved people
there were officially free—
and had been for more than two years.
Still, at this point, people remained
legally enslaved in the border states.
It wasn’t until more than five months
later, on December 6th, 1865,
that the 13th Amendment
was finally ratified.
This formally ended chattel slavery
in the US.
Because official emancipation
was a staggered process,
people in different places commemorated
it on different dates.
Those in Galveston, Texas, began
celebrating “Juneteenth”—
a combination of “June” and “nineteenth”—
on the very first anniversary
of General Granger’s announcement.
Over time, smaller Juneteenth gatherings
gave way to large parades.
And the tradition eventually became
the most widespread
of emancipation celebrations.
But, while chattel slavery
had officially ended,
racial inequality, oppression,
and terror had not.
Celebrating emancipation was itself
an act of continued resistance.
And it wasn't until 2021 that Juneteenth
became a federal holiday.
Today, Juneteenth holds profound
significance as a celebration
of the demise of slavery, the righteous
pursuit of true freedom for all,
and a continued pledge to remember
the past and dream the future.
