As leaders and companies across the United States announce efforts to support Black people and culture during a time of widespread protests against systemic racism and police brutality, Juneteenth, a 155-year-old holiday celebrating the emancipation of African-Americans from slavery in the U.S., has been in the news.
The importance of the holiday
SimAmericans outside of the Black community. It is still rarely mentioned in school curricula. As a result, “this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans,” the National Museum of African American History & Culture notes.
Juneteenth remained a major celebration for the Black community in Texas, however. In 1938, Texas designated a day of observance for Juneteenth celebrations, called Emancipation Day, two years after up to 200,000 people turned out for Juneteenth celebrations in Dallas.
Still, Juneteenth did not become an official state holiday in Texas until 1980 and the state’s government offices do not close for the holiday.
Overall, Juneteenth celebrations began to see a broader resurgence among the Black community in the middle of the 20th Century, especially amid the civil rights movement.
“The Black Power movement, in particular, with its emphasis on pride, culture, identity, and re-claiming history, helped spark a renewed interest in Juneteenth,” Anthony Greene, an associate professor of African American Studies at the College of Charleston, said in a 2018. “Additionally, as Black Studies (African American Studies) programs have developed on college campuses, accurate Black historical narratives have emerged, also helping to generate more interest in celebrations such as Juneteenth.”
Is Juneteenth a national holiday?
No. In recent years, presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump have issued statements of observance for the Juneteenth holiday, but efforts to make Juneteenth an official federal holiday have fallen short in Congress.
As of 2020, though, 47 states and the District of Columbia have all passed legislation recognizing Juneteenth as either a state holiday or day of observance (Hawaii, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states that do not recognize the holiday).
Currently, voter mobilization nonprofit NextGen America is circulating an online petition calling on Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday.
How Juneteenth is celebrated today
Juneteenth celebrations take place each year across the country.
In 2019, thousands of people celebrated the holiday in
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