Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vocal Bam here. Every year on June nineteen, millions of people across America come together to celebrate Juneteenth with parties and parades, prayer, breakfasts, and golf tournaments, cookouts and music. The holiday is now officially recognized in forty seven states plus Washington, d C. Though it hasn't been made a national holiday yet despite having been around for more than
a hundred and fifty years. We spoke with Paula Austin, a professor of African American studies and history at Boston University. She said, you'd be surprised. There are many students who get to my class and they sort of never learned about the history of enslavement. They've never learned about the Civil rights movement. I think they've had students who, because of where they're from or their families, know about Juneteenth and have actually participated in the celebrations. But most students
come and they don't know. But let's go back to the beginning. On June eighteen sixty five, more than two months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S grant at apematics, which all but ended the Civil War. A U. S. Army officer by the name of Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas with two momentous announcements, the end of the Civil War and with it, the
end of slavery. Nobody is quite sure why it took so long for the news of emancipation to reach Texas. Several stories have been told throughout the years, though none has ever been confirmed, including one of an earlier messenger who was killed on his way to Texas to tell the news of freedom. Others believe that some enslavers knew the truth but simply continued going about business as usual.
The most likely is simply that there were not enough troops to enforce the emancipation Proclamation, whether enslaved people knew about it or not, so things remained status quo, that is until Major General Granger showed up. After Granger's announcement, some of the two hundred and fifty thousand people in Texas immediately left for the promise of true freedom in the North, while others traveled to rejoin family members. One formerly enslaved person, Molly Harrold, said in the slave narratives
of Texas. We all walked down the road, singing and shouting to beat the band. Others stayed defined, paying work in the fields and elsewhere. That day marks what is now often called Black Independence Day or the Black fourth of July. It's the American celebration of freedom from slavery. Juneteenth was first observed in Texas in eighteen sixty six. It wasn't officially recognized as a holiday in any state
until Texas did so in nineteen seventy nine. Since then, only North Dakota, South Dakota, and Hawaii have yet to declare it a holiday. In recent years, both the U. S. House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate have formally recognized June nineteenth as Juneteenth Independence Day. Various movements to grant the day status as a national holiday are ongoing.
U S. Senator Corey Booker said in twenty eighteen, on this day, we must confront the ugly parts of our history and honor the slaves who suffered and died under a repressive regime. We must also pay tribute to all those who had the strength and conviction to fight to end slavery and keep our union together. Juneteenth Independence Day is also an important moment to recognize how far we've come and take note of how far we have yet to go. Certainly, during the original Juneteenth, there was still
a lot of work to be done. It came just months after the Civil War ended and two years after
the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S Constitution, which abolished slavery, had been passed by Congress and was well on its way to being ratified by the States, but the fourteenth and fifteenth guaranteeing equal protection and the right to vote to all citizens regardless of skin color, were still a couple of years off, and not all enslaved people in Texas were immediately freed. Some held by defiant plantation owners
were not emancipated until much later. Some formerly enslaved people who tried to leave, historical reports show, were tracked down and killed. Many more stepped into a future of poverty, fear, and uncertainty. Austin suggests that many Americans ignorance about Juneteenth stems from a disinclination to completely face the country's past with slavery, and it's far reaching and continuing aftermath. Still
Juneteenth has persevered. It's observance has waned through the years under the oppression of Jim Crow laws and attitudes, but the festivities that began in Texas eventually spread to more states, and the idea of commemorating black independence picked up through the civil rights era of the nineteen sixties, and the parties continue today. Austin said, the kinds of celebrations that I've seen and been a part of have been incredibly wonderful.
They're about Black culture, They're about Black history. They're about the resistance and the resilience of the black community. Several years before Granger made his June nineteenth declaration in Galveston, famed American orator Frederick Douglas, himself formerly enslaved, spoke to an abolitionist group in New York about the fourth of July as being a day of independence and how it didn't fit for all Americans. He said, what to the
American slave is your fourth of July? I answer? A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. Openly a former school teacher and counselor in Fort Worth, Texas, has been instrumental in trying to get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday. This year, she'll walk from the Fort Worth Convention Center to the Will Rogers Colisseum, leading a caravan and urging people to
sign a petition for the cause. Lee, who is ninety three years old, has been part of the Fort Worth Juneteenth festivities for more than forty years. She said last year, it's as important as the Fourth of July. In fact, I dream someday they celebrate from the nineteenth to the fourth like they do. Marty Gras, I haven't dreamed as large as the Rose Bowl or the Macy's Parade, but
I'm getting there. To those who observe June tenth, despite its shaky beginnings and it's still unfulfilled, pledge, the day still holds a promise of freedom, independence, equality, ideas and ideals always worth celebrating. Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com.
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