Juneteenth is Now a Federal Holiday!

From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19 as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. It is a day, a week, and in some areas a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics, and family gatherings.

Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops’ arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. On June 17, 2021, it officially became a federal holiday. 

Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House two months earlier in Virginia, but slavery had remained relatively unaffected in Texas—until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

The Emancipation Proclamation 

The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, had established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” 

But in reality, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t instantly free any enslaved people. The proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control. However, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people fled behind Union lines.

President Lincoln, Slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation

Juneteenth and Slavery in Texas

In Texas, slavery had continued as the state experienced no large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops. Many enslavers from outside the Lone Star State had moved there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery.

After the war came to a close in the spring of 1865, General Granger’s arrival in Galveston that June signaled freedom for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone—in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until after harvest season—celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born. That December, slavery in America was formally abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment.

The year following 1865, freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became the annual celebration of "Jubilee Day" on June 19. In the ensuing decades, Juneteenth commemorations featured music, barbecues, prayer services and other activities, and as Black people migrated from Texas to other parts of the country the Juneteenth tradition spread. 

In 1979, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday; several others followed suit over the years. In June 2021, Congress passed a resolution establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday; President Biden signed it into law on June 17, 2021. 

Source: History.com

FREE OUTDOORS FESTIVAL

JOIN US ON JUNE 19-22 IN MELLON PARK, PITTSBURGH PA, FOR THE 2025 WPA JUNETEENTH HOMECOMING CELEBRATION.

The WPA Juneteenth and Black Music Celebration is now the largest Juneteenth festival in North America creating millions of dollars, via tourism, for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. See below. NEW SITE LOCATION The Pittsburgh Juneteenth Celebration has been held in Pittsburgh PA and at Point State Park since 2014, because of recent renovations to Downtown and at Point State Park, the WPA Juneteenth and Black Music Celebration has been temporarily moved to Mellon Spray Park for the 2025 Season. 2025 ACTIVITIES  From June 19-22 the WPA Juneteenth and Black Music Celebration will feature FREE live entertainment from National Artist and Local Band, highlighted by RnB legendary groups Morris Day and The Time (June 19th), Dru Hill (June 20th) and Donnell Jones (June 21st) with other artists to be named for June 22nd. From 4pm to 10pm Daily. On THURSDAY June 19th, the celebration will include a BOAT-PARTY from 10:30pm - 1:30am on the Gateway Clipper Fleet (paid event). 

Tickets are now available through Eventbrite.com

On FRIDAY June 20th, Join us at Mellon Park for a FREE concert starring KUT KLOSE | JON B | DRU HILL.

On SATURDAY June 21st, the celebration will continue it's annual JUNETEENTH MARCH & PARADE in Downtown Pittsburgh from 11am-1pm, celebrating Voting Rights and the end of Chattel Slavery in North America. The Celebration will also include it's annual Juneteenth YouthFEST at Mellon Park which involves various sporting tournaments (Baseball, Football and Basketball) and Youth-Fun-Zone activities for children from 9am to 4pm daily. The Celebration will also include healthy lifestyle programming with various activities for Seniors over the weekend. Eating habit talks, medical screenings and Exercise events. On Saturday June 21st, from 2pm-6pm at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater (East Liberty), the Celebration will include educational components with JUNETEENTH FREEDOM TALKS with renowned Anti-racist Scholar TIM WISE and Community Activist 19-KEYS. Limited space is available and this is a Free Community Event. Tickets available through Eventbrite.com. Get ready for another FREE concert starring THE BLACKBYRDS | HI-FIVE | DONNELL JONES at Mellon Park.

 On Sunday June 22nd, the WPA Juneteenth and Black Music Celebration will conclude with a Gospel Presentation and other closeout activities at Mellon Park. SMALL BUSINESS ECONOMIC IMPACT ZONE The WPA Juneteenth and Black Music Celebration will host over 200 small business vendors inside it's Vendor Plaza to help various minority companies generate funds during this event from 11am to 10pm Daily.

VENDORS | SPEAKERS | LIVE ENTERTAINMENT | PARADE | EDUCATION PROGRAM

JOIN US FOR OUR 2023 UPCOMING PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

June 10-11 | Juneteenth Youth Festival @ Mellon Park (8a-4p Daily)

DAILY SCHEDULE

YOUTH FEST, JUNE 10-11 (8a-4p Daily)

NFL Flag Football Tourament + Duolingo Youth Fun Zone + Pittsburgh Penguins Dek Hockey Acivities + Dick's Sporting Goods Outdoors Adventures + PlayStation Gaming + Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Activation + Juneteenth Basketball Showcase + more

                                            __________

June 10-11 | Pittsburgh Black Heritage Celebration @ Mellon Park (11a-9p Daily)

DAILY SCHEDULE

JUNE 10th:

• 11am - 5pm, Vendors + Youth Activities + Entertainment
• 5pm - Celeb Negro League Softball Exhibition Game (Pittsburgh Crawfords -vs- Homestead Grays) 
• 6:30pm - Performance by CURTIS LEWIS JR
• 7pm - Performance by KORYN HAWTHRONE
• 8pm - Peformance by JOHN P. KEE

JUNE 11th:   

• 11am - 6pm, Vendors + Youth Activities + Entertainment 
• 6pm - Earth Wind & Fire Tribule Band
• 7:30pm - SUNSHINE ANDERSON
• 8pm - CASE

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June 16-19 | WPA Juneteenth Celebration, Downtown Pittsburgh (11a-9p)

JUNETEENTH-IN-THE-SQUARE   Entertainment Highlights JUNE 16-19, Market Square (11am-9pm Daily) FRI June 16th 1pm, Dr. James Johnson & Pgh Jazz All-stars |  3pm, Soul Radyo Band I 5pm, Chantal Joseph Band | 7:30pm, House of Soul Band (pic) SAT June 17th2pm, Dr. Jacqueline Young Quintet | 4pm, ARTISTREE | 6pm,

ONE-UP Band | 8pm, 496 WEST Band Presented by PA Lottery (pic) SUN June 18th 2pm, Rodney McCoy | 4pm, Deryick Tines | 6pm, Tubby Daniels Band | 8pm, Kevin Howard Quartet (pic) MON June 19th2pm, Hugo Cruz & Caminos Trio | 4pm, ALKEMI Band | 6pm, Flow Band | 7:30pm, BHB (pic) Lawn Chairs Recommended | Vendors | Cultural Activities | More

June 17th   | Grand Jubilee-Juneteenth Parade, Downtown Pittsburgh (11am-1pm)

July 13-15  | Pittsburgh Black Music Festival, Downtown Pittsburgh (11a-9p)

Sept. 1-3    | Pittsburgh Soul Food Fest, Market Square & PPG Plaza (11a-9p)

June 19, or Juneteenth, is a holiday that commemorates the day that Texas, the last Confederate state, learned about the Emancipation Proclamation—marking the end of slavery in the United States in 1865. 

But as University of Pittsburgh historian Alaina Roberts notes, it’s important to remember that the emancipation of slaves didn’t actually happen in one fell swoop.

“Juneteenth is a reminder that emancipation was not one moment in time: the news about the Emancipation Proclamation (which outlawed slavery within Confederate states) and the Thirteenth Amendment (which abolished slavery throughout the country) came to African Americans in different parts of the United States at different times,” said Roberts, assistant professor in Pitt’s Department of History in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. 

How can we talk about Juneteenth and race with our children? To help, Pittwire sat down with Aisha White, director of the P.R.I.D.E. Program (Positive Racial Identity Development in Early Education) in the School of Education’s Office of Child Development. The goal of the P.R.I.D.E Program is to help young Black children develop a positive racial identity by supporting teachers, parents and other caregivers by providing resources that build their racial knowledge and skills.

You might not want to explain Juneteenth to kids if you don’t want to explain slavery to them. It may be too scary a topic for kids that aren’t old enough—and while children’s ability to understand and manage that kind of information varies, it’s safer to not start until they’re closer to 6 or 7 years old. However, if children who are younger raise the issue, there are ways to explain it to them that won’t cause anxiety.

I like to reference a TED Talk by author and scholar Beverly Daniel Tatum called “Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk?” The way she explained it to her son (who asked the question that became the title of her talk) was: A long time ago, before there were companies, stores and buildings, there were some people who needed to work the land in the United States. There was a need for smart, strong workers—and they went to Africa and brought them to the United States against their will which wasn’t OK. They were people but they were called slaves. Those people made them work, but never paid them and they were never allowed to leave the plantations where they worked; it was very unfair. But there were also good people who were working to end slavery, Black and white people, and they were eventually successful. Of course, this is an abbreviated version and you may need to add many more details, but you will have at least covered many of the main issues. 

Once you get to the part of the story where you’re explaining Juneteenth, you can tell children that during that time there were no things like TV or phones to communicate; information was written in letters and carried from one place to another on horses. Not everyone got the news at the same time that slavery had ended, so it took two years for people to find out about it in Texas. But on June 19, people in that state did learn about it. 

The story I described can be told to anyone. However, a white family might need to explain more explicitly that it was white people who enslaved Black people. White families should also make sure to describe how there were many white people who were allies in the struggle who helped to abolish slavery. And, it’s also important for white families to be prepared to answer questions if their children ask why white people enslaved Black people. 

Juneteenth gave people freedom but it also gave them hope, something they had been longing for for a long time. Telling this particular story offers an opportunity for kids to know how important it was for people who had been treated so badly for so long to begin to experience a whole new way of life, to be truly free, and that’s always something to celebrate.

This doesn’t differ between white and Black families. One way to introduce the conversation is by reading picture books. They’re an easy and obvious way to introduce kids to people who don’t look like them. Children need to have these conversations because they are seeing what we refer to as racial differences early. By the time a child is 3 months old, they can already notice someone whose skin color is different from their primary caregivers, just by looking at faces. They look longer at the face of someone whose skin color looks like their primary caregiver at that age. But at 6 months, they spend a longer amount of time looking at someone whose face is different from, for example someone who is darker than their primary caregiver.  

As they grow and develop, kids are taking in all the information they get from everywhere in the world, including watching television, being engaged in local activities, the covers of magazines at the grocery story. They can put two and two together, but they don’t always end up with four. If we don’t talk to our kids, they often make their own sense of things on their own. 

Black families should be consistently providing uplifting information for children. In the literature, it’s called racial socialization: helping kids feel good about themselves as individuals, including their facial features and hair texture. It’s important they understand they’re part of a larger group of people who are part of their race and feel good about that, about the things those people created and the history of those people. The messages are more protective and can serve as a preventive measure that interrupts the process of them internalizing negative attitudes about themselves they can develop as a result of living in a racialized society.

For white families, it’s important to do work that interrupts white children developing a false sense of racial superiority. Parents should be stifling the idea of racial superiority—and emphasizing that goodness, smartness or kindness is not assigned to a certain race of people. 

If a parent chooses not to talk about race with their kids, they should know that they’re actually taking an action—being silent is taking action, just the wrong kind. When a child says something that may be racially unacceptable, parents should treat it like any other conversation that they may have with children and not react in ways that are extreme. They should not shush children when they ask questions. The conversation should be natural and comfortable so that children feel free to ask questions and sometimes make mistakes. Children will easily pick up if you’re uncomfortable during these conversations, so it’s better to be sure you’re ready to have them rather than jump into them unprepared. Parents should talk with other adults about race and racial issues in order to feel comfortable and well prepared to have those conversations with their children. 

Conversations are important. People may not think they’re significant, but the absence of conversation is doing a whole lot of harm. Their child might have lots of questions they don’t know how to ask. If you open up the dialogue, you’ll be more likely to know more about what they’ve seen, what they’re thinking about, what they’re wondering about. 

For example, their child may be extremely afraid of what they’re seeing on the news. Even for parents who are very careful about what their children watch, they might come into the living room when you don’t expect it. And they can still have concerns even if they’ve heard about these things secondhand. If you don’t have a conversation with them, they may be scared to death. Parents might want to open up the conversation by saying to their child: “We’ve never talked about this before, but I think now we need to as a family. There are lots of things happening with people protesting here in our city and in the country and I really would like to know what you’re thinking or wondering about what’s going on.” Once they tell you, then, as a parent, you can help fill in the gaps, answer their questions and assure them that if they’re worried or afraid, you’ll help keep them as safe as possible. 

Source: University of Pittsburgh

Fact #1: Following the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, not all enslaved people immediately found freedom.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in states then in rebellion against the United States. Union troops operating in said states gave teeth to the Proclamation. This, however, did not apply to the border states.

Fact #2: The Civil War ended in the summer of 1865. Union General Gordon Granger and his troops traveled to Galveston, Texas to announce General Orders No. 3 on June 19, 1865. June 19th would go on to be known and celebrated as Juneteenth. 

General Orders No. 3  stated: “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."

Fact #3: Part of General Order No. 3 encouraged the newly freed people to remain with their past owners.  “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.”

 Fact #4: The period after Juneteenth is known as the ‘Scatter.’  Undeterred by the recommendation to remain in place, many former slaves left the area during the original reading. In the following weeks formerly enslaved people left Texas in great numbers to find family members and make their way in the postbellum United States.  

Fact #5: Juneteenth has been celebrated under many names.  Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, Second Independence Day, and Emancipation Day to name just a few.

Fact #6: Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas was bought specifically to celebrate Juneteenth.  The 10-acre parcel of land was purchased by former slaves, Richard Allen, Richard Brock, Jack Yates, and Elias Dibble for $800 in 1872.  

Fact #7: During the early 20th-century Juneteenth celebrations declined.  The enactment of Jim Crow laws dampened the celebration of freedom. In addition, the Great Depression forced many black farming families away from rural areas and into urban environments to seek work— resulting in difficulty taking the day off to celebrate.  

Fact #8: The celebration of Juneteenth was revived during the civil rights movement.  The Poor People's March planned by Martin Luther King Jr. was purposely scheduled to coincide with the date. March participants took the celebrations back to their home states and soon the holiday was reborn.

Fact #9: Celebrations of Juneteenth continue today.  Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs, and reading of works by noted African American writers. Celebrations can also take the form of rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth contests.  

Fact #10: On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which officially made Juneteenth a federal holiday.  This holiday is the first holiday to be approved since President Ronald Reagan signed a 1983 bill that approved Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday.

Source:  American Battlefield Trust

Each year, the month of June marks the anniversary of Juneteenth — the day in 1865 that news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Galveston, Texas, and enslaved African Americans became aware that they had been freed. It was declared in 2019, that June 19 of each year will be known as Juneteenth National Freedom Day in PA.

Check back regularly on this webpage as we add this year’s Juneteenth festivals across the state. Beyond these Juneteenth celebrations, we will have inspirational content on how Juneteenth is celebrated in our arts, foods, and music – showcasing our abundance of Black-owned businesses in the Keystone State.

Learn More

 The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American and History (NMAAHC) will host a variety of virtual and in-person events and programs highlighting the experiences of African American Juneteenth celebrations. Also known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth marks the moment in United States’ history—June 19, 1865—when the remaining 250,000 enslaved African Americans in Confederate states were legally declared free two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. In the century-and-a half since, the Juneteenth holiday represents a time to gather with family and community, honor the present and reflect on shared history and tradition. The museum’s programming and educational resources can be found on its award-winning Juneteenth webpage.  

“Long celebrated in my family, Juneteenth is an opportunity for friends and loved ones to gather together in fellowship and food, reflecting on the profound contributions of African Americans to our nation’s progress,” said Kevin Young, the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  This year’s commemoration will explore the “sense” of freedom by highlighting the music, food and experiences of African American Juneteenth celebrations. In addition to programs celebrating Juneteenth, the museum will also be displaying the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s original speech from the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The artifact will be on view from Jun. 9. to Jun. 20. in the “A Changing America” exhibition.  “As we celebrate the first anniversary of the Juneteenth federal holiday, we remember and recognize how the Black community continues to make a way out of no way, overcoming trials and celebrating triumphs while honoring the place and price of freedom.”