A holiday commemorating the end of slavery goes unnoticed by many in the US. But Black Americans have celebrated freedom on Juneteenth for over 150 years, remembering past steps toward equality and what needs to improve.
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Each year, people in the United States celebrate Independence Day on July 4. On this national holiday, friends and family gather to have barbecues and enjoy firework displays commentating the decision to be free of British colonial rule.
But the Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776, did not grant liberty to all. Slavery remained in place. In his famous 1852 speech, Frederick Douglass, a former slave turned abolitionist, put it succinctly: "This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn."
The Declaration of Independence did not mean freedom for black people in the new USImage: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
It took until January 1, 1863, when US President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that "that all persons held as slaves" in states fighting Lincoln's army "are, and henceforward shall be free." It took more than two more years — until June 19, 1865 — for Union Army soldiers to arrive in Texas to enforce the proclamation.
African-Americans have since celebrated the day, which became known as Juneteenth, as a day of liberation. Yet many white people in the US have never heard of it. It was not until December 1865 that an amendment to the constitution abolished slavery in all of the United States.
Patchy awareness of Juneteenth
Awareness of the day's significance greatly depends on where in the US a person grew up.
"I've lived in Maryland for the past 15 years and not very many people are aware of it here, certainly not many white people," Melvin Edwards, an Anne Arundel County school district spokesman, told DW.
Juneteenth's absence from the school curriculum has meant that few people are aware of it, Edwards said. Even during Black History Month in February, where an emphasis is put on teaching about African-American culture and history in US schools, Juneteenth rarely comes up in class.
Edwards, who is originally from Texas, where his ancestors were held as slaves, added that because Texas is one of the states where Juneteenth is an official holiday "more people are aware of it there."
But people who grew up and live in predominantly white neighborhoods are still unaware of Juneteenth as a significant event in US history, a fact Edwards said he thinks needs to change.
"I don't want it to be something that's relegated to the black community," he said, adding, "We all belong to the American experience, so we should all know about that history."
The evolution of Juneteenth
Washington DC's expansive National Museum for African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is dedicated to that historical experience. Even though the museum is currently closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, anyone can access the website on June 19 to learn about the origins of Juneteenth and participate in an online workshop on researching family histories.
Joanne Hyppolite, a NMAAHC curator and expert on African American and African diaspora material and expressive culture, said Juneteenth was "definitely celebrated in Texas immediately the year after."
The migration of former slaves in the US South to large cities in the country's north and west had a major impact on how awareness of Juneteenth spread throughout the country. It took about 100 years, however, until it finally became a broadly established as a day of remembrance in the black community.
12 African Americans you should know
Black lives matter, yet the history of the US has long been dominated by white people. Here is a selection of African Americans who, across 300 years, deserve a more prominent place in the history books.
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Crispus Attucks (1723-1770)
During his lifetime the United States of America did not exist. But during the Boston massacre, an uprising against British troops, the dock worker Crispus Attucks was the first of five civilians to be killed on March 5, 1770. Henceforth, he became the black martyr of the American Revolution. Attucks was the son of an African and an Indian woman and an escaped slave.
Image: Gemeinfrei
Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)
The mathematician and astronomer is considered the first African American scientist. But he was also a passionate abolitionist and criticized the later president Thomas Jefferson for his view that blacks were mentally inferior to whites. In doing so, Banneker compared the situation of blacks with that of the US under the "tyranny of the British crown" before the War of Independence.
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Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
She was born on the banks of the Gambia River in Africa before she was sold into slavery at the age of seven. Her "owners" taught her to read and write. She published her first poem at the age of 13, and in 1773 she was the first African American to publish an entire volume of poetry. For this she was also praised by George Washington, who invited her to his home.
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James Forten (1766-1842)
Free-born James Forten first went to sea and then trained as a sailmaker in Philadelphia. In 1798, he purchased the sail business where he did his apprenticeship and soon became a wealthy man. He never sold a sail to a slave ship. He used his wealth and prestige to advocate for abolition and civil rights for blacks in the US. His name is on the list of the 100 greatest African Americans.
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Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)
Born into slavery as Isabella Bomfree, she faced harsh punishment until escaping with her child and being freed by an abolitionist family in 1827. As a travelling preacher known as Sojourner Truth, she became a roving advocate for women's rights and the abolition of slavery. Her famous 1851 speech "Ain't I a Woman?" called for racial and gender equality, and she later opposed segregation.
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Maria W. Stewart (1803-1879)
A free-born woman who became a journalist, abolitionist, lecturer and women's rights advocate, Maria W. Stewart was the first African American to address an audience of men and women who were both black and white. "It is not the color of the skin that makes the man or the woman, but the principle formed in the soul," she famously said. "Brilliant wit will shine, come from whence it will."
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Harriet Tubman (ca. 1820-1913)
Having escaped slavery in 1849, the abolitionist famously became a "conductor" on the "Underground Railroad," a series of safe houses through which liberated slaves on southern plantations could travel to freedom in the Union in the north. Later, she helped former slaves overcome poverty. Tubman will replace slaveholder and former president Andrew Jackson on a new 20 dollar bill.
Image: Reuters/Library of Congress
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
The civil war brought him freedom from slavery before he became an influential educator, author and advisor to several US presidents. He encouraged African Americans to improve their status through education and entrepreneurship, rather than trying to fight segregation and the disenfranchisement of blacks in the Jim Crow South. He was the first African American to dine with a president in 1901.
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Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931)
Born to parents who were slaves before the civil war, Ida B. Wells-Barnett became an influential journalist, educator, civil rights leader and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She famously documented widespread lynchings in the South, and a justice system that "takes us out and murders us in cold blood when accused by white persons."
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James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)
A diplomat under president Theodore Roosevelt's service and the first African American professor at New York University, Johnson was also managing director of the NAACP and fought against racism and ongoing black lynchings. He was also a key member of the Harlem Renaissance as a writer and poet. His poem "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" was later adopted as an African American "national anthem."
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Also a founder of the NAACP, the journalist, historian and civil rights activist became in 1895 the first black man to receive a doctorate from Harvard; he wrote his thesis on the slave trade. Despite his academic achievements, he was denied a career at the top US institutions. In 1919 he organized the first Paris "Exhibit of American Negroes" in which he challenged racist stereotypes.
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Rosa Parks (1913-2005)
Her story sparked the civil rights movement in the US. Parks was arrested in 1955 because she refused to vacate her seat on the bus for a white passenger. The arrest triggered the "Montgomery Bus Boycott," which ultimately brought Martin Luther King to the forefront of the civil rights struggle. She has been immortalized as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement."
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"As a result of the Black Power and Civil Rights movements during the 1960s and the 1970s, African Americans were looking to celebrate their history and claim pride in their heritage," Hyppolite said. "Things like Juneteenth were opportunities for them to be able to bring attention to African American history."
Today, Juneteenth is marked with special church services and barbecues, involving friends, relatives and neighbors. The color red has become associated with this historical day, as such, many of those observing Juneteenth wear red clothes, or serve red foods and drinks, like red velvet cake and strawberry beverages.
Juneteenth as a day of reflection
Melvin Foote, head of the Washington DC-based group Constituency for Africa, which strives to educate people and lawmakers in the US about Africa, said Juneteenth provides a moment to reflect on how much progress the United States has made since slavery — and what still needs to improve.
Marches take place in several US cities on Juneteenth, but many people are unaware of the day's significanceImage: picture alliance/AP Images
Foote said this year highlights the need for reflection — not just because of the police brutality that led to the death of George Floyd, sparking Black Lives Matter protests across the country and the world. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Foote said, has also made clear the racial inequality that persists in the US health care system.
He also called US President Donald Trump's initial plan to hold his first post-lockdown reelection rally on June 19 tone-deaf. Trump had wanted to speak in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where one of the most severe incidents of racial violence in US history left scores of African Americans dead in 1921. Trump's plan sparked an outcry, and he postponed the rally by one day. All this increased awareness for Juneteenth, Foote told DW.
Foote said he welcomes that more and more people are becoming aware of Juneteenth. But he also said, "It's not so much about what white people think, it's more about what we think, what we think about ourselves, what we think about our children, what do we think about our community.
"It's going to be more of what can we do Juneteenth to step it up as a people," he said. "How do we do better to make sure that our issues are raised and dealt with."
