What is Juneteenth and why is it a holiday?

Celebrated annually on 19 June across the US, Juneteenth commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas and the nation’s “second” Independence Day.

Juneteenth – which was recognised as a federal holiday in 2021 – now more widely represents the emancipation of enslaved African Americans across the country in the wake of the US Civil War and its violent aftermath. It is the oldest nationally recognised commemoration of slavery’s end.

Here’s a brief history of Juneteenth and how it is recognised today.

On 19 June 1865, roughly 2,000 Union Army soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, with news that enslaved people were now free.

In his order, Union Army Maj Gen Gordon Granger announced that “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 labour,” he continued.

But the announcement arrived more than two years following then-president Abraham Lincoln‘s Emancipation Proclamation, which signalled the end of slavery in the US but did not end the enslavement of all people in the nation at the time, contrary to its legacy and evocative language.

Although the proclamation was issued on 1 September 1862, it didn’t go into effect until 1 January 1863. The war raged on for more than two more years.

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which formally abolished slavery in the US, wasn’t passed by Congress until 31 January 1865. It was ratified later that year.

Meanwhile, roughly 200,000 Black men had enlisted among the Union ranks in the months before Confederate General Robert E Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia on 9 April.

What was left of local Confederate armies and militia men held out in uprisings as slavers in the southern states migrated west to the Confederacy stronghold of Texas, along with thousands of enslaved people they had taken with them.

For the more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas upon the Union Army’s arrival, General Granger’s order didn’t instantly release them from their chains; many slavers suppressed the news to the people they enslaved.

The general’s order continues: “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.”

Slavery’s formal end ushered in a decade of Reconstruction, which sought the continued emancipation of Black Americans and inclusion of the secessionist states into the US amid white supremacist paramilitary terror and a devastated post-war economy.

While the 13th Amendment prohibited the enslavement of Americans, it exempted slavery for those convicted of a crime. “Black codes” in economically devastated southern states subjected harsh penalties for newly freed Black Americans for crimes like loitering or breaking curfew, ensuring they would remain in chains for decades to follow.

The practice of “convict leasing” prisoners for labour to build railways and mines, among other private construction projects, became ”slavery by another name” that is echoed in today’s mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts Black Americans.

The word is a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth”.

Parades, festivals, concerts, family gatherings, church services and other community events are hosted across the US.

The Fourth of July – which marks the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 – is recognised nationwide just a few weeks later. In his “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” address in 1852, abolitionist Frederick Douglass noted the nation’s hypocrisy of celebrating Independence Day while imposing a brutal regime of slavery.

Juneteenth was not formally recognised in Texas, where the order was delivered, until 1979. It was the first state to do so.

The date is now recognised in nearly all states and was designated a federal holiday in 2021.

While campaigners led a movement to create a Martin Luther King Jr Day in the wake of his killing, groups across the US also worked to create national days of observance for Juneteenth.

Opal Lee – whose home was torched by a white mob on 19 June, 1939 – led a national campaign for federal recognition of Juneteenth by walking from her home in Fort Worth, Texas to Washington DC every year.

Following an international uprising against police violence and systemic racism after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the holiday gained larger attention outside African American communities.

Donald Trump’s decision to host his first campaign rally since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic on Juneteenth in Tulsa, Oklahoma – three weeks after the city recognised the anniversary of a two-day massacre of Black residents by a white mob in 1921 – drew widespread criticism and attracted significant press attention around Juneteenth. The former president then moved the rally to the following day.

Several cities and a number of large companies also added the holiday to their list of paid holidays. Nike, National Football League and Twitter now provide a paid day off to their employees for Juneteenth.

Democratic US Rep Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas led recent efforts to make Juneteenth a national holiday, adding to the list for the first time since the addition of Martin Luther King Jr Day in 1983.

On 13 June, the US Senate unanimously approved the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing 19 June as a legal public holiday.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson, who blocked its passage in 2020, lifted his opposition in 2021.

The measure received overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives on 16 June, though 14 Republicans voted against it.

Finally, on 17 June 2021, Joe Biden signed into law a measure creating the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. It is the nation’s 11th federal holiday.

Ms Lee was present at the White House for the bill signing.

As a federal holiday, federal employees receive a paid day off on 19 June, or on the nearest Friday or Monday if the holiday falls on a weekend.

It joins a list of federal holidays that includes New Year’s Day, MLK Jr Day, Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Many private companies also are adding the holiday to their list of paid US holidays, which typically include New Year’s Day, MLK Jr Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This story was initially published in June 2020 and has been updated.