Happy Juneteenth!
This Sunday, June 19, African-Americans across the South and beyond (and others who recognize the holiday) will celebrate Juneteenth. This is the 140th anniversary of what many call "America's Second Independence Day," marking the day in 1865 -- over two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation -- that slaves in Texas were finally set free.
Here's a description we ran in Southern Exposure magazine in 1977:
and as one person notes, "To this day, the Lone Star State remains alone in its affirmation of an anniversary of significance to many African Americans." [ed note: see update below]
Yet Juneteenth still thrives as a patchwork quilt of grassroots celebrations across the country -- still strongest in the South, but now reaching into places like Milwaukee and Minneapolis, where two of the biggest festivals are held.
For information about Juneteenth and celebrations in your area, check out this site. And have a great Juneteenth weekend!
UPDATE ONE: My source on Texas being the only state to recognize Juneteenth was wrong (I thought it was, should have trusted instinct). The Texas Monthly sets us straight:
UPDATE THREE: A reader emails to recommend Ralph Ellison's novel Juneteenth, which he started in 1951 and died in 1994 before completing. Here's an interesting piece on how the book came together.
Here's a description we ran in Southern Exposure magazine in 1977:
The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, did not have any effect in Texas because to little of the state was occupied by Northern troops. When Lee surrendered in April, 1865, most Texas plantations were still intact, and a quarter-million black people were working as slaves.Omitted from the history books and largely ignored by the mainstream (white) media, Juneteenth nonetheless thrived as a popular underground holiday, especially in the black South. Here's what a retired teacher who grew up in a community of black landowners around the turn of the century (so rare today) told Southern Exposure in 1977:
It was not until June 19, 1865 -- when General George Granger arrived with Yankee troops in Galveston and issued his own emancipation decree -- that slaves were actually freed in Texas. June 19 -- "Juneteenth" -- therefore became the day of celebration.
It was just a happy, getting-together day. We'd be farming and everybody would try to get the land clean by the nineteenth. If I had my crop cleaned out and you didn't have yours cleaned, I would come over and try to get yours cleaned out, too. We all worked for that day: to have the crops cleaned to take that holiday. We'd get together and buy a beef, or maybe someone would throw in a beef or part of a hog. Then we'd get together to barbecue it. The women would fix baskets, salads, cakes and pies. And we'd all meet at a special place. There would be soda water and ice cream. We'd make our own ice cream. And we would have ball games, horse races, goose-neck pullings and some kind of music at night. Wouldn't have sermons or spirituals; it was just a joyful day."Texas didn't recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday until 1980,
Yet Juneteenth still thrives as a patchwork quilt of grassroots celebrations across the country -- still strongest in the South, but now reaching into places like Milwaukee and Minneapolis, where two of the biggest festivals are held.
For information about Juneteenth and celebrations in your area, check out this site. And have a great Juneteenth weekend!
UPDATE ONE: My source on Texas being the only state to recognize Juneteenth was wrong (I thought it was, should have trusted instinct). The Texas Monthly sets us straight:
MYTH: Juneteenth is a celebration unique to Texas.UPDATE TWO: I cross-posted this over at DKos, which led to some good discussion about where Juneteenth is being celebrated. Los Angeles and Seattle are in full celebration mode. Salt Lake City did things its own way and celebrated last weekend.
REALITY: It was for 115 years, becoming an official state holiday in 1980, but its popularity spread nationwide after a 1991 Smithsonian exhibit showcased the history of black Texans’ Emancipation Day. Now Alaska, Florida, and thirteen other states also officially recognize Juneteenth.
UPDATE THREE: A reader emails to recommend Ralph Ellison's novel Juneteenth, which he started in 1951 and died in 1994 before completing. Here's an interesting piece on how the book came together.
6 Comments:
The Juneteenth story is much more interesting than even that. My great-great grandfather, James Pope COLE, was County Judge at the time. He went way back to the Republic of Texas, where he and Gail BORDEN (later the inventor of condensed milk) had chartered the City of Galveston and opposed joining the Union as a slave state. (The UK offered to protect the Republic of Texas from Mexico if and only if it freed all slaves.)
That battle was lost in the main to Sam HOUSTON, who supported slavery and union.
In 1860, Galveston first voted not to secede. There was a second referendum, though, in which Sam HOUSTON and Dr. (later Confederate General and post-Reconstruction Governor) THROCKMORTON opposed secession and supported slavery.
(President LINCOLN had promised that slave states which did not secede could keep their slaves.)
At that point, James Pope COLE organized a committee to secede in Galveston. The popular sentiment in Galveston was anti-slavery but pro-secession, the opposite of the position of the planters, led by HOUSTON and THROCKMORTON.
HOUSTON and COLE debated the matter from a balcony of the Tremont Hotel in Galveston.
Galveston voted to and Texas seceded -- as was its right under the treaty of union. But, against German sentiment in Galveston, Texas joined the Confederacy, which proved, in the end, to be pro-slavery to the bitter end, despite calls from Generals Bragg and Cleburne, and others (especially in the CSA Department of the West) to free and arm black men to defend the South.
Meanwhile, Galveston had changed hands three times during the war and was already in Union hands when the Emancipation Proclamation arrived. The other Union-occupied cities of the South were by-passed. There was good military and political reason to send a very controversial order to Galveston first.
James Pope COLE was still the County Judge and quite promptly and happily put it into effect. (The deed is done by striking certain property records in the county courthouse.)
Yes, Juneteenth was a long awaited jubilee from day one.
COLE, originally from South Carolina, had previously freed his only slave -- a long-time household servant he had inherited -- and, indeed, had co-founded two black and one white Baptist churces in Galveston.
Much, perhaps most, of the abolitionist sentiment in the North was quite anti-black. Probably all of the abolitionist sentiment in the South was evangelical christian, patronizing to black people, doubtless, but nothing like the rabid anti-black sentiment that would sweep the South when the Southern Whigs, like THROCKMORTON, would come to power and, after 1876, make Jim Crow an institution in the South but a national policy of both the Republican and Democratic Party leaders in Washington, D.C.
So, it was that the Emancipation Proclamation had not been put into effect anywhere else when those orders came to Galveston, because it was recognized in the Union War Department that the order would be popular and could be enforced there with relative ease -- with no problem at all, in fact.
Galveston went on to become the leading German and Jewish city in North America, a major port of entry to the US, and "The Wall Street of the South".
It was the leading and most cosmopolitan city of Texas until the Great Storm of 1900, the discovery of oil in Beaumont, opening of the Galveston-Houston Ship Channel and Turning Basin, and defeat of the Second Reich.
Those were knock-out blows for Galveston. But, it is a city of distinction and honor to this day, just of very little elevation and with sand, not rock, for foundations.
Prior to the arrival of Catesby ap Jones of the US Navy, it had been a haven for pirates and slavers. But, that is another story.
John: Thank you for this fascinating take on the history of Galveston and Juneteenth. The city has been home to all manner of forward-thinking leaders and rebels, such as Norris Wright Cuney. http://www.texasescapes.com/AllThingsHistorical/Norris-Wright-Cuney-AM704.htm
Thanks again for the history.
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Juneteenth is America's 2nd Independence Day celebration. 26 states recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or state holiday observance, as well as the Congress of the United States.
Together we will see Juneteenth become a national holiday in Amemrica!
"DOC"
Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D.
Chairman
National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
www.Juneteenth.us
www.19thofJune.com
www.njclc.com
www.JuneteenthJazz.com
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