On July 19, 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday—exactly one month and 156 years after Union troops entered Galveston, Texas, toppling the last Confederate stronghold.
While memorializing Juneteenth as a national holiday was long overdue, we shouldn’t forget that the celebration’s roots are in Texas, where the largest population of Black people in the United States currently live. For Black Texans, Juneteenth holds a special significance that’s worth learning and, if you’re educator like myself, teaching.
While memorializing Juneteenth as a national holiday was long overdue, we shouldn’t forget that the celebration’s roots are in Texas.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation freed all enslaved Black people in Confederate states in 1863, the Union had not yet swept far enough into the Deep South to fully enforce it. It wasn’t until two years later, on June 18, that Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston to occupy Texas and announced, the following day, that all enslaved people were free.
This history explains part of the reason why Galveston became the center of Juneteenth commemorations, but it’s also because the city was a major slave port. By 1860, Galveston was the most populated city in Texas, serving as a commercial hub within the Confederacy. Prior to the Union’s advance, almost every Black person in Galveston was enslaved, due to a de-facto law from 1836 that banned free Black people from residing in Texas. It was no accident that Granger chose the city of Galveston to make his decree.
Granger, according to historian Gerald Horne, approached the city with an army that was close to 75 percent Black. With free Blacks banned and white settlers now threatened by Union occupation, Black Galvestonians could trust what Granger said as Black soldiers stood with him.
Before Juneteenth became Juneteenth, it was first celebrated in 1866, in Texas, as Emancipation Day. Other places had their own Emancipation Days, including the states of the states of Florida and Mississippi, and the District of Columbia. But importantly, outside of Texas, Emancipation Day took place on January 1, rather than in June, to match with the anniversary of the 1863 signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
And, while Galveston was the last Confederate territory where enslavement was declared dead, it was still allowed in a handful of states—Delaware and Kentucky, for example—until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.
Early Juneteenth celebrations looked like community gatherings: sports were played, cookouts were held, and Black folks prayed, danced, and lit fireworks. But at their core, these events were an opportunity for both community empowerment and for families broken up by enslavement to reconnect.
The legacy of Juneteenth, the truest Independence Day we have, deserves to be taught in schools and commemorated by everyone.
Juneteenth gatherings customarily feature red foods—such as strawberry pie, barbecue, watermelon, hot sauce, red rice, red velvet cake, and red sausages—to symbolize resilience and joy. But no celebration would ever be complete without Red Drink, as Sunyatta Amen explained in The Washington Post:
“Throughout enslavement in the Americas, Red Drink was seen as a healing beverage used to cool overheated bodies working on plantations. . . . Combined with the warmth of ginger and the pluckiness of traditional African spices, the bitter and sweet flavors of Red Drink were a liquid love letter in remembrance of a distant homeland.”
Juneteenth’s popularity among Black people outside of the South can be traced back to the Great Migration. From 1910 to about 1970, Isabel Wilkerson writes in The Warmth of Other Suns, “The people from Texas took Juneteenth Day to Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, and other places they went.”
Although Juneteenth celebrations declined somewhat during this same period in Texas (which was also the first state to establish Juneteenth as a government-approved holiday in 1979), it’s unlikely that the holiday would have become a federal holiday today without Black people spreading it.
The legacy of Juneteenth, the truest Independence Day we have, deserves to be taught in schools and commemorated by everyone. That said, we’ve got to be specific about its origins, lest we unintentionally erase the holiday’s meaning for Black Texans. And then, like many other holidays, Juneteenth is also in danger of becoming commodified by corporations looking to capitalize on racist tropes.
But keeping in mind how Juneteenth has been celebrated across generations, we can avoid both of these issues and honor the day with respect for the history and humanity of Black people—especially Black Texans.