Friday, June 19, 2020

Juneteenth


Juneteenth, which is a contraction of June and Nineteenth is a celebration that originated in Texas commemorating the day on which General Gordon Granger announced federal orders that all people held as slaves in Texas were free. This came about two and a half years after the  Emancipation Proclamation was put into effect.
The Emancipation Proclamation freed all previously enslaved people in the U.S. As the Union Army advanced into the south, or as escaped slaves crossed into Union territory, either action freeing a person from the control of the Confederate government, that person was considered free. When the Union won the war in April 1865, it permanently freed all people previously enslaved under Confederate law. But Texas was remote compared to the other slave states. Granger's announcement on June 19, 1865 helped enforce the Emancipation Proclamation more consistently in Texas. After Juneteenth, there were some people still owned legally as slaves in the Union Border States (slave states that did not join the south during the Civil War) but these people were officially freed on December 6, 1885 by the 13th Amendment.

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