The History Of How Emancipated People Were Kept Unfree Needs To Be Remembered, Too – Juneteenth Celebrates Just One Of The United States’ 20 Emancipation Days
The actual day was June 19, 1865, and it was the Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, who first heard the word that freedom for the enslaved had come. There were speeches, sermons and shared meals, mostly held at Black churches, the safest places to have such celebrations.
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900, held in ‘East Woods’ on East 24th St. in Austin, Texas. Austin History Center
The perils of unjust laws and racist social customs were still great in Texas for the 250,000 enslaved Black people there, but the celebrations known as Juneteenth were said to have gone on for seven straight days.
The spontaneous jubilation was partly over Gen. Gordon Granger’s General Order No. 3. It read in part, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from th...