Chapter 1. Creating a Nation, Beginnings to 1877 --

Chapter 1. Creating A Nation, Beginnings To 1877 --

A Look At Black History

Timeline and Pictures

Part 1: Beginnings to 1877

Chapter 1. Creating A Nation, Beginnings To 1877 --

The History of Juneteenth in Texas

From the Texas State Historical Association TSHA website
https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lkj01

JUNETEENTH

Teresa Palomo Acosta

Gordon Granger's Circular. Courtesy of the Galveston Daily News, July 7, 1865. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

Gordon Granger. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

54th Anniversary Emancipation Proclamation

 1865–1919

Texas: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints,
DeGolyer Library, Central University Libraries,
Southern Methodist University 

Juneteenth celebration in 1900 in Austin, Texas. Courtesy of the Austin History Center and the Portal to Texas History. Image available on the Internet. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

JUNETEENTH. On June 19 ("Juneteenth"), 1865, Union general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order Number 3, which read, "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 freed are advised to remain 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." The tidings of freedom reached the approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas gradually as individual plantation owners informed their slaves over the months following the end of the war. The news elicited an array of personal celebrations, some of which have been described in The Slave Narratives of Texas(1974). The first broader celebrations of Juneteenth were used as political rallies and to teach freed African Americans about their voting rights. Within a short time, however, Juneteenth was marked by festivities throughout the state, some of which were organized by official Juneteenth committees.

The day has been celebrated through formal thanksgiving ceremonies at which the hymn "Lift Every Voice" furnished the opening. In addition, public entertainment, picnics, and family reunions have often featured dramatic readings, pageants, parades, barbecues, and ball games. Blues festivals have also shaped the Juneteenth remembrance. In Limestone County, celebrants gather for a three-day reunion organized by the Nineteenth of June Organization. Some of the early emancipation festivities were relegated by city authorities to a town's outskirts; in time, however, African American groups collected funds to purchase tracts of land for their celebrations, including Juneteenth. A common name for these sites was Emancipation Park. In Houston, for instance, a deed for a ten-acre site was signed in 1872, and in Austin the Travis County Emancipation Celebration Association acquired land for its Emancipation Park in the early 1900s; the Juneteenth event was later moved to Rosewood Park. In Limestone County the Nineteenth of June Association acquired thirty acres, which has since been reduced to twenty acres by the rising of Lake Mexia.

Particular celebrations of Juneteenth have had unique beginnings or aspects. In the state capital Juneteenth was first celebrated in 1867 under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau and became part of the calendar of public events by 1872. Juneteenth in Limestone County has gathered "thousands" to be with families and friends. At one time 30,000 African Americans gathered at Booker T. Washington Park, known more popularly as Comanche Crossing, for the event. One of the most important parts of the Limestone celebration is the recollection of family history, both under slavery and since. Another of the state's memorable celebrations of Juneteenth occurred in Brenham, where large, racially-mixed crowds witness the annual promenade through town. In Beeville, residents of all races have also joined together to commemorate the day with barbecues, picnics, and other festivities.

Photo of Althia Burns-Franklin of Goliad County who remembered hearing stories of Juneteenth from her grandparents as a girl. Image courtesy of The Texas Coastal Bend Collection. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

Juneteenth declined in popularity in the early 1960s, when the civil-rights movement, with its push for integration, diminished interest in the event. In the 1970s African Americans' renewed interest in celebrating their cultural heritage led to the revitalization of the holiday throughout the state. At the end of the decade Representative Al Edwards, a Democrat from Houston, introduced a bill calling for Juneteenth to become a state holiday. The legislature passed the act in 1979, and Governor William P. Clements, Jr., signed it into law. The first state-sponsored Juneteenth celebration took place in 1980.

Juneteenth has also had an impact outside the state. African American Texans who moved to Louisiana and Oklahoma have taken the celebration with them. In 1991 the Anacostia Museum of the Smithsonian Institution sponsored "Juneteenth '91, Freedom Revisited," featuring public speeches, African-American arts and crafts, and other cultural programs. There, as in Texas, the state of its origin, Juneteenth has provided the public the opportunity to recall the milestone in human rights the day represents for African Americans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

Randolph B. Campbell, "The End of Slavery in Texas: A Research Note," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 88 (July 1984). Gregg Cantrell and Elizabeth Hayes Turner, eds., Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007). Doris Hollis Pemberton, Juneteenth at Comanche Crossing (Austin: Eakin Press, 1983). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. William H. Wiggins, Jr., O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987). David A. Williams, The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, Texas Style (June 19, 1865) (Austin: Williams Independent Research Enterprises, 1979).

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9 Things to Know About the History of Juneteenth

by Ko Bragg for NBCNews.com

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/9-things-know-about-history-juneteenth-n594546

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration honoring the end of slavery in the United States.

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger led thousands of federal troops to Galveston, Texas to announce that the Civil War had ended, and slaves had been freed. Approximately 250,000 Texan slaves had no idea that their freedom had been secured by the government.

However, the history of freedom in this country can be tangled, and this is no exception.

Here are nine facts about the historical moment, and what led up to it.

1. You may recall Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation from elementary social studies classes. In the condensed version, many learn that this executive order meant immediate freedom for slaves throughout the nation. However, since the country was in the midst of the Civil War, those states that had seceded from the Union did not adhere to the Proclamation, and slaves in those states remained unfree.

2. Though much of the language in the Emancipation Proclamation suggests otherwise, Lincoln’s primary objective was not to ameliorate the lives of those in bondage. Rather, his intent was preserving the Union.

In August 1862, Horace Greely, the editor of the New York Tribune, published an editorial addressed to Lincoln pressuring his stance on slavery and urging him to abolish it. Lincoln responded in an open letter to Greely, published in the Tribune that same August:

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy Slavery,” Lincoln wrote. “What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union...”

3. Lincoln and the Union army used slavery as a political motive to justify strengthened military endeavors against the Confederacy. Black soldiers were able to fight for the Union when Lincoln passed the Proclamation. Though they faced discrimination and often performed menial roles because of presumed incompetence, they increased the Union army in size.

4. The Civil War ended in April of 1865. In June of that year, General Gordon Granger and his troops traveled to Galveston, Texas to announce “General Orders No. 3” It stated: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.

5. Throughout the war, Texas was not as closely monitored as other battle states. For this reason, many slave owners went to Texas with their slaves. With its relatively negligible Union presence, slavery continued there for much longer. After the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, slaves in wartorn states often escaped behind Union lines or fought on its behalf

6. The slaves who got the news were jubilant to hear of their freedom on Juneteenth. In the book, “Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas,” Felix Haywood, a former slave who gave a testimony about Juneteenth as part of a New Deal project recalled:

"The end of the war, it come jus’ like that—like you snap your fingers….Hallelujah broke out….Soldiers, all of a sudden, was everywhere—comin’ in bunches, crossin’, walkin’ and ridin’. Everyone was a-singin.’ We was all walkin’ on golden clouds….Everybody went wild...We was free. Just like that we was free.”

7. Freedom did not come at the “snap of a finger” for everyone in Texas. Some people who should’ve been freed continued to work through the harvest season because their masters withheld this announcement to reap more wages out of their slaves. This left many former slaves treated as though they were still in bondage.

In “Lone Star Pasts” Susan Merritt reported:

“Lots of Negroes were killed after freedom...bushwhacked, shot down while they were trying to get away. You could see lots of Negroes hanging from trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom."

8. In the 1870s, a group former slaves pooled $800 together through local churches to purchase ten acres of land and create Emancipation Park to host future Juneteenth celebrations in modern-day Houston.

9. In 1980 “Emancipation Day in Texas” became a legal state holiday in recognition of Juneteenth. However state offices do not completely close, as it is considered a "partial staffing holiday." Elsewhere, the holiday is also referred to as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, and Black Independence Day.

Many continue to celebrate Juneteenth 151 years later. Throughout the nation people host cookouts, parades, and other gatherings to commemorate.

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