Juneteenth

A brief history of the holiday

While the emancipation of enslaved people was first declared in the country by President Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, it was largely unenforced until union troops arrived after slowly advancing through the south. Because of this, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 — more than two years following the emancipation proclamation — that a Union general named Gordon Granger officially told people of Galveston, Texas that enslaved people were free by executive proclamation.

While some enslavers withheld this information until after the harvest season, June 19 became the chosen day to celebrate by the newly freed. Slavery was officially abolished that December with the 13^th Amendment.  The first official Juneteenth celebration, known then as “Jubilee Day,” was held the following year in 1866.

While Juneteenth was initially celebrated mostly in Texas and other gulf coast states, it also slowly gained popularity among Black communities in other parts of the country in the years and decades that followed. Even now, in addition to being a relatively new concept to many white Americans, there are still many BIPOC Americans in northern states with only peripheral awareness of Juneteenth.

Juneteenth is commonly celebrated with parades, barbecues, prayer services, historical and cultural readings, musical performances, and more.

The long tradition of African American cooperation is not well known, and in her book Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard sets out to remedy that gap in our knowledge. From mutual aid societies to independent fugitive communities and from farmer cooperatives to consumer co-ops, Professor Gordon Nembhard details how people work together in the face of racism and active sabotage to improve each others’ lives in tangible ways. Read more here.