06/18/2021
Juneteenth. This day is worthy of a national holiday.
Juneteenth refers to June 19th 1865, which is the date, three months after the Civil War came to an end, when Union troops arrived in Texas and a proclamation was made to alert everyone in Texas to the fact that all slaves were free. Texas was the last state to fall under Union control, so Juneteenth marks the true emancipation of slaves in the Confederacy.
The slaves were “freed” in the Confederacy by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but that proclamation had zero effect on slaves or slave owners living there.
Border states that were loyal to the Union and still had some slaves did not fall under the Emancipation Proclamation, because Lincoln had no authority to abrogate the laws of Union states. So, the final emancipation of slaves in the US didn’t happen until December 1865, when the 13th Amendment was ratified.
So, if we are to celebrate the end of slavery in the US, and we certainly should, should we use the date of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the date the slaves were freed in the last Confederate state, or the date that the final US slaves were freed by the 13th Amendment?
History has solved this question for us. Former slaves in Texas soon began celebrating June 19th, affectionately called Juneteenth. That celebration gradually spread across the country over the next 150+ years, and Congress just passed a law making it a national holiday.
