![]() Over time, this growing awareness of Juneteenth has led to an exponential growth of events in cities across the nation. Representative Al Edwards introduced legislation in Texas to officially recognize the holiday, making it a state holiday the following year. The 1960s Civil Rights Era saw a resurgence in Juneteenth awareness, leading to the creation of today’s two largest Juneteenth celebrations in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. historical narrative has made it an unknown holiday to many for decades. Though widely celebrated by the community in its first years, Juneteenth’s absence in the mainstream U.S. And later, they built towns like Freedmen's Town in Houston, TX, established universities like Tuskegee in Alabama, and created a Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Couples obtained marriage certificates to form legal union with the person they loved. After recieving the news, the first acts of freedom included locating family members who were sold and shipped off during slavery, legally changing their own names, and creating schools and places to learn, which slaves had been systematically denied before. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have felt like to wait in anticipation for freedom and then finally hear the words spoken aloud. He arrived with 1,800 federal troops in order to ensure compliance in Confederate states, many of which continued to defy the executive order years after it was mandated. Specifically, it marks the day when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas (one of the westernmost points in the Confederate South) finally received news of their liberation by Union Major General Gordon Granger. Short for “June Nineteenth,” Juneteenth marks the true end of chattel slavery across the United States- which didn’t actually occur until 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Today’s video Doodle, illustrated by Los Angeles-based guest artist Loveis Wise and narrated by actor and activist LeVar Burton, honors the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth. And at its worst, it perpetuates an incomplete truth that robs every American of understanding what actually happened after slavery was reformed. At its best, this limited narrative reduces the struggle for Black liberation in America to a singular moment. What I was not taught, however, was the FULL story of American slavery and its slow and painful end, even after Lincoln’s Proclamation. As a young Black girl growing up in Memphis, I remember my teachers teaching this, too. For many Americans, this simple statement has been taught to us in grade school for decades. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the United States. ![]() Go behind-the-scenes of today’s Doodle belowĬREDIT: Various archival images courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
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