Library blog

Juneteenth: Mixing Celebration with Remembrance

by Karen Jury on 2021-06-09T12:52:00-04:00 | 0 Comments

What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is a holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. The name of the holiday comes from the words "June" and "Nineteenth," chosen because June 19, 1865 was the date the slaves in the most remote state at the time, Texas, were officially informed of their freedom (so they were likely the last communities of enslaved people to know they were now free).

Although many people probably think of the Emancipation Proclamation as the end of slavery in the U.S., due to the timing and especially the wording of the Proclamation itself--the Proclamation was more of a step along the way to true emancipation and freedom:

"It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory."

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not truly emancipate all of those held in slavery in the U.S., it became a turning point in the Civil War for several reasons, especially: black men were now allowed to join the ranks of Union soldiers and sailors, bringing nearly 200,000 more men to the Union side; and the cause of freedom now became one of the driving forces for the Union (both soldiers and civilians) to keep fighting and supporting the war.

Once the war was over and the Union had won, the Proclamation went into full effect in the slave states--but the presence of Union soldiers was what allowed the Proclamation to actually be enforced. Slaves living in Texas were the last to be notified of the end of the war, primarily because Texas was the farthest away and had less Union soldiers in the state. On June 19, 1865, General Order No. 3 was issued in Galveston by Union General Gordon Granger, including these words: all slaves are free. Although all enslaved men and women would not truly be free until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in December 1865 officially outlawing all slavery anywhere in the United States, June 19 became an important milestone. Celebrations held on June 19, commemorating the end of slavery, began in Texas before spreading outward to other states in subsequent years.

Today in 2021, nearly all states have designated Juneteenth as an official holiday, including Pennsylvania which officially recognized it on June 19, 2019. Central Penn College is celebrating Juneteenth this year in a number of different ways, including having an in-person celebration today, June 9 titled "A Moment of Black Excellence" with music, dance, and food all provided by African-American entrepreneurs. There was also a visual display created, split between quotations and timeline events, highlighting the steps along the journey of African-Americans as they slowly gained full rights and freedom.

In the library, our current book display features books about both the history of slavery in the United States (most of the books) along with books that discuss how some people in the world today are still experiencing slavery--even though slavery is illegal in all countries.

If you're looking to learn more about how slavery truly affected people's lives, check out some of these autobiographical or biographical books from our library display: