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6/19 is Juneteenth [1]

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Date: 2023-06-19  

Before I start, I'm going to make note of some other noteworthy events on this day:

In 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in US territories, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford.

In 1964, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which had already passed in the House, also passed in the Senate

In 1979, one W.T. Rabe created World Sauntering Day, aka International Sauntering Day, in reaction to the growing semi-cultish popularity of jogging. The idea was to encourage people to slow down and enjoy and appreciate life rather than rushing through it. I heartily concur and think that this is a perfect day to indulge in such behavior.

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So, Juneteenth. The short form is that this is when the news of the abolition of legal slavery hit Galveston. So why would that specific date be such a BFD outside of Galveston? Well .... Abe Lincoln's 1862 Emancipation Proclamation freed some of the slaves in the US with an effective date of January 1, 1863. Effectively, as enunciated by Lincoln on 01/01/1863, it freed all enslaved persons in the Confederacy only. The 13th Amendment, Constitutionally prohibiting slavery was passed by the Senate in April 1864, by the House in January 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, and Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, 1865.

Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston with 2.000 US troops to occupy the now defeated Texas on June 18, 1865. On the following day he read aloud from the balcony of a local building a document known as "General Order No. 3": as follows:



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 rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

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The Emancipation Proclamation was essentially meaningless unless the Confederacy surrendered, or there were Union Army troops at hand to enforce it, or both. Gordon Granger's reading of General Order No. 3 was the instrument that actually freed all of the enslaved people in Texas. There were great numbers of them because many slaveholders had bailed on Confederate states further east in the face of encroaching war and bolted to Texas taking "their" slaves with them.

There was a large celebration among the freed slave populace of Galveston, which had swelled to great size due to the influx of slaveholders from further east as explained above. This phenomenon spread as the news spread and became an annual event, which was given official status in Texas in 1980. It spread, officially or otherwise, throughout the US and Became a federal holiday in 2021.



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