On this day, 19 June 1865, after the US civil war, Union general Gordon Granger gave a proclamation in Galveston, Texas, stating: "The People of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and property rights between former masters and slaves".
It then clarified that the relationship between formerly enslaved people and their enslavers should become "that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages… they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."
As news of the declaration spread across the state, large numbers of enslaved people began to effectively go on strike and desert their plantations, returning to states they came from or heading for cities containing Union troops.
The following year, Black Texans decided to celebrate Juneteenth on June 19, holding festivities and parades. And in subsequent years the celebrations grew, and spread with Black migration to cities like Los Angeles, Oakland and Seattle.
Later in the 20th-century the holiday had largely faded from the public mind, but in the 1980s Black activists made a concerted effort to reinvigorate Juneteenth as a public holiday. It was officially recognised in Texas in 1980, and following mass Black-led protests in 2020 was made a federal holiday in 2021, although many employers still do not give paid leave for Juneteenth celebrations.
Back in the 1800s, one formerly-enslaved Texan, Felix Haywood, later reflected on his emancipation: "We thought we was going to get rich like the white folks. We thought we was going to be richer than the white folks, ’cause we was stronger and knowed how to work, and the whites didn’t, and they didn’t have us to work for them any more. But it didn’t turn out that way. We soon found out that freedom could make folks proud, but it didn’t make ’em rich.”
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9111/Juneteenth
Pic: Juneteenth celebration band, Texas, 1900
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