Originally published on TheHill.com
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
But it took until June 19, 1865, for news of the emancipation to reach Galveston, Texas. When Union soldiers arrived to enforce the order, the day became known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day — or simply: Juneteenth.
Although the city of Galveston has celebrated Juneteenth since 1866, the push to make the day a federal holiday dates back more than 100 years.
But it wasn’t until the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in 2020 that recognition of Juneteenth began to spread, according to Frederick Knight, a professor of history at Morehouse College.
“There was a sense that we need to, as a nation, have this racial reckoning,” Knight said. “With Biden’s presidency, he in many ways fulfilled at least one of the promises of that summer of racial reckoning.”
Advocates say now is the time to lean into the legacy of Juneteenth in order to push back on what appears to be a backlash to Black success.
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