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

The Western Pennsylvania Juneteenth Celebration, the largest in the region, is back, complete with the Grand Jubilee Juneteenth Parade, a voting rights forum and a salute to military service. The celebration also encompasses the Pittsburgh Black Music Festival, which will offer a vibrant mix of music across genres, including live jazz, gospel, hip-hop, RnB, funk, blues and soul performances.

Pitt departments can also table at the festival on Saturday and Sunday. Sign up, or contact Chance Wideman (chw246@pitt.edu) or Keith Caldwell (keith.caldwell@pitt.edu) with questions.

Where: Market Square and Point State Park

Tickets: This is an unticketed event.

Join the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh and other community partners for the neighborhood’s Pre-Juneteenth Festival. The event will feature free food, live entertainment, a group fitness class, a kid's zone and special guest speakers, including Leon Ford, Jason Rivers and Rev. Cornell Jones.

Where: Homewood-Brushton YMCA, 7140 Bennett St., Pittsburgh, PA, 15208

Tickets: This is an unticketed event.

The Pittsburgh Glass Center is holding a Juneteenth community open house in collaboration with Kelly Strayhorn Theater and the Legacy Arts Project. Enjoy glass-making demonstrations and explore a multimedia installation, “Myth-Science of the Gatekeepers,” which features life-size statues of Black queer Kemetic deities by Rainbow Serpent, a Black LGBTQ+ arts collective.

Where: Pittsburgh Glass Center, 5472 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15206

Tickets: Most activities are free and unticketed; register in advance to create your own glass sculpture.

Enjoy African dancing and drumming and honor unsung community heroes at this New Life Community Ministries event. The New Life Community Ministries festival will also feature arts and crafts, games, a scavenger hunt, free snacks and food trucks.

Where: Universal Park, 1 Memorial Park Lane, Penn Hills, PA, 15235

Tickets: This is an unticketed event.

Join members of Equipoise, Pitt’s community for African American and Black staff and faculty, for a screening of “American Fiction.” The film will be followed by a discussion and happy hour at Spirits and Tales. Refreshments will be served during the movie.

Where: William Pitt Union, Room 630, 3959 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15213

Tickets: This is a free event, but registration is requested.

The Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Pitt Serves and the Engaged Campus will host a day of service in the Pittsburgh neighborhood. Volunteers will help with local projects, such as litter cleanup and grounds maintenance around the Hill, then join a lunch and learn session to discuss the impact of community engagement.

Where: Transportation will be provided from the Pittsburgh campus; register on the Pitt Serves portal for more information.

This Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall event combines cultural expression and historical education. Pitt Associate Professor Alaina Roberts is among the local experts who will speak at the festivities. The celebration will also include performances by local studio Dance INK and artwork displays.

Where: 300 Beechwood Ave., Carnegie, PA, 15106

Tickets: This is a free event, but registration is requested.

— Donovan Harrell

Join us in Pittsburgh, PA for the largest Juneteenth Celebration in the nation running from June 14-16, 2024 in Downtown Pittsburgh PA 

Locations: Market Square, Stanwix and Liberty Ave., Point State Park

Get ready for the Western PA Juneteenth Homecoming Celebration with Vendors | Speakers | Cultural Activities | Parade | and more.

This is a FREE COMMUNITY EVENT!

Out of Town guests can book any room in a Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh, or surrounding area in walking distance.

Spread the Word and SAVE THE DATES! Visit: StoptheViolencePgh.com for more information

FRIDAY, JUNE 14:

Freeway + Beanie Sigel (Point State Park)
Arrested Development (Point State Park)
KLYMAXX (Market Square)

SATURDAY, JUNE 15:

Elle Varner (Point State Park)
Brownstone (Point State Park)
Keke Wyatt (Point State Park)
Blackbyrds (Market Square)

SUNDAY, JUNE 16:

Kelly Price (Point State Park)
Stokley (Point State Park)
Adam Hawley (Market Square)

More information:

https://www.stoptheviolencepgh.com/wpa-juneteenth/

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

When Mayor Ed Gainey came into office, he understood that his administration would be under greater scrutiny than any other administration. He accepted that challenge of accountability and visibility in every aspect since he would be bringing about change to the city that has not been experienced.

In keeping to that ideal, the administration worked hard to have the City fully embrace the Juneteenth celebration through financial and in-kind support. However, one of the challenges the City faced was having a clear, precise and transparent process of how public funds were being spent.

So, in keeping with the City’s goals of transparent use of city funds and accountability, the City did use the established procurement process.

To that end, we established an RFP or Request For Proposal to solicit Juneteenth events and to ensure a visible, clear and open process to request proposals from private event promoters for City funding. This opens the door to all event promoters to provide opportunities to new artists and vendors, which we believe helps to keep a celebration fresh and equitable.

This process was communicated clearly and directly to all private event promoters last year. In hopes that the City will be able to have a robust Juneteenth celebration.

Juneteenth is an important celebration equaled to the July 4th celebration. And as seen with the Fourth, multiple various celebrations are held. No one individual or organization holds the exclusive license for the 4th Celebration.

The City’s desire is to have additional, not dueling or competitive events for the Juneteenth celebration. This is an opportunity to uplift more people wanting to celebrate Juneteenth.

Juneteenth is a celebration of the freedom of Black people from slavery. Let’s recall the joy that was felt that day to create a day of remembrance, honor and celebration for all.

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