On June 19 Americans will celebrate Juneteenth, the day when the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free.
FILE - People hold a sign in their car during a car parade to mark Juneteenth on June 19, 2021, in Inglewood, Calif. Communities all over the country will be marking Juneteenth, the day that enslaved Black Americans learned they were free. For generations, the end of one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history has been recognized with joy in the form of parades, street festivals, musical performances or cookouts. Yet, the U.S. government was slow to embrace the occasion.
And just as many people learn what Juneteenth is all about, the holiday's traditions are facing new pressures — political rhetoric condemning efforts to teach Americans about the nation's racial history, companies using the holiday as a marketing event, people partying without understanding why. "Old master didn't tell, you know, they was free," Smalley said. "I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That's why, you know, we celebrate that day."
Slavery was permanently abolished six months later, when Georgia ratified the 13th Amendment. And the next year, the now-free people of Galveston started celebrating Juneteenth, an observance that has continued and spread around the world. Events include concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.It's a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, second Independence Day and Emancipation Day.Most U.S.
The bill was sponsored by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and had 60 co-sponsors, a show of bipartisan support as lawmakers struggled to overcome divisions that are still simmering three years later.
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