Juneteenth is a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It is also called Emancipation Day or Juneteenth Independence Day. The name “Juneteenth” references the date of the holiday, combining the words “June” and “nineteenth. Juneteenth is celebrated annually on June 19.
Juneteenth was originally celebrated in Texas, on June 19, 1866. It marked the first anniversary of the day that African Americans there first learned of the Emancipation Proclamation, more than two years after it was initially issued. The holiday was originally celebrated with prayer meetings and by singing spirituals and wearing new clothes to represent newfound freedom. Within a few years, African Americans were celebrating Juneteenth in other states, making it an annual tradition.
Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States. Legislation establishing the holiday was passed by Congress on June 16, 2021, and signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden the following day. Juneteenth had previously been established as a state holiday in Texas in 1980, with a number of other states later declaring it a state holiday or day of observance.
From the Congressional Research Service (CRS) Juneteenth: Fact Sheet (updated June 21, 2021)
Recognizing and celebrating Juneteenth 2022 on The University of Akron Campus and in the community.
Slavery Didn't End On Juneteenth. What You Should Know About This Important Day
Books from the Bierce Library print book collection can be borrowed by UA students, faculty, staff, retirees, alumni and community patrons according to current UL Circulation Policies.
All Different Now by
Experience the joy of Juneteenth in this celebration of freedom from the award-winning team of Angela Johnson and E.B. Lewis. Through the eyes of one little girl, All Different Now tells the story of the first Juneteenth, the day freedom finally came to the last of the slaves in the South. Since then, the observance of June 19 as African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. This stunning picture book includes notes from the author and illustrator, a timeline of important dates, and a glossary of relevant terms. Told in Angela Johnson's signature melodic style and brought to life by E.B. Lewis's striking paintings, All Different Now is a joyous portrait of the dawn breaking on the darkest time in our nation's history.
The Emancipation Proclamation by
Exploring the complexity of the process by which African-Americans gained freedom, Emancipation Proclamation hones in on the struggle over its meaning through more than 40 documents and images, which give voice to the range of individuals who participated in this vital drama.
Festivals of Freedom by
With the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, many African Americans began calling for a day of publick thanksgiving to commemorate this important step toward freedom. During the ensuing century, black leaders built on this foundation and constructed a distinctive and vibrant tradition through their celebrations of the end of slavery in New York State, the British West Indies, and eventually the United States as a whole, In this revealing study, Mitch Kachun explores the multiple functions and contested meanings surrounding African American emancipation celebrations from the abolition of the slave trade to the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. emancipation. Excluded from July Fourth and other American nationalist rituals for most of this period, black activists used these festivals of freedom to encourage community building and race uplift. Kachun demonstrates that, even as these annual rituals helped define African Americans as a people by fostering a sense of shared history, heritage, and identity, they were also sites of ambiguity and conflict. Freedom celebrations served as occasions for debate over black representations in the public sphere, struggles for group lea
Jubilee by
Introduction by Winton Marsalis. Slaves came to the Americas from many different parts of the African continent, bringing with them distinct languages, religions, and expressive arts. Jubilee shows the many ways that these diverse peoples united, forged their own identity, and laid the foundations for truly unique African-American social, cultural, political, and economic expressions throughout the Western Hemisphere. Jubilee is written by Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Cultureone of the most prominent institutions of black scholarship in the world. Essays by leading voices in African-American history and literature, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., John Hope Franklin, Amiri Bakara, Annette Gordon-Reed, and Gail Buckley will explore topics such as abolition and emancipation, changes in family life and social development, religion, and the evolution of language, literacy, and education through the end of Reconstruction. This illuminating text is surrounded by more than 200 stunning illustrations, culled from the Schomburgs collection of more than 5 million items. From slave ship manifests, manumission papers, and some of the earliest photographs of slaves to carved items that echo African sculpture and freedom quilts with African motifs, the book is richly illustrated in an interactive way that brings to life this crucial transition from slavery to freedom.
Juneteenth by
Shot on the Senate floor by a young Black man, a dying racist senator summons an elderly Black Baptist minister from Oklahoma to his side for a remarkable dialogue that reveals the deeply buried secrets of their shared past and the tragedy that reunites them.
Juneteenth Texas by
Juneteenth Texas, Publications of the Texas Folklore Society #LIV, received a San Antonio Conservation Society award for the preservation of historic buildings, objects and places relating to the history of Texas and its natural beauty and all that is admirably distinctive of our state, and to educate the public with knowledge of our inherited regional values.
O freedom! : Afro-American Emancipation celebrations by 
A Slave No More by
Slave narratives, some of the most powerful records of our past, are extremely rare, with only fifty-five post-Civil War narratives surviving. A mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group with the publication of A Slave No More, a major new addition to the canon of American history. Handed down through family and friends, these narratives tell gripping stories of escape: Through a combination of intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the men reached the protection of the occupying Union troops. David W. Blight magnifies the drama and significance by prefacing the narratives with each man's life history. Using a wealth of genealogical information, Blight has reconstructed their childhoods as sons of white slaveholders, their service as cooks and camp hands during the Civil War, and their climb to black working-class stability in the north, where they reunited their families.In the stories of Turnage and Washington, we find history at its most intimate, portals that offer a rich new answer to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
African Americans in the Post-Emancipation South by
Historians and other scholars often use first-hand accounts, including contemporary observations, as sources for study of the past. These types of sources are valuable, especially when used in conjunction with other documents, as they help us to approximate the past. This study uses these types of sources to attain glimpses of African American life in the post-emancipation South. Spanning from the 1860s through the New Deal, this study incorporates a broad cross-section of the views of European travelers and Euro-American visitors from the North, based upon travel books as well as articles and essays from periodicals and scholarly journals. The study synthesizes the outsiders' observations and assesses their summaries' overall validity for increasing our understanding of the lives of blacks in the post-emancipation South. Furthermore, these accounts allow for a reconstruction of African American life and labor in the major aspects of black culture--religion, education, politics, criminal justice, employment and entrepreneurship, social life and status--of the times. The work is constructed in the context of contemporary anthropology, ethnography, psychology, and sociology.
The Long Emancipation by
In The Long Emancipation Rinaldo Walcott posits that Black people globally live in the time of emancipation and that emancipation is definitely not freedom. Taking examples from across the globe, he argues that wherever Black people have been emancipated from slavery and colonization, a potential freedom has been thwarted. Walcott names this condition the long emancipation--the ongoing interdiction of potential Black freedom and the continuation of the juridical and legislative status of Black nonbeing. Stating that Black people have yet to experience freedom, Walcott shows that being Black in the world is to exist in the time of emancipation in which Black people must constantly fashion alternate conceptions of freedom and reality through expressive culture. Given that Black unfreedom lies at the center of the making of the modern world, the attainment of freedom for Black people, Walcott contends, will transform the human experience worldwide. With The Long Emancipation, Walcott offers a new humanism that begins by acknowledging that present conceptions of what it means to be human do not currently include Black people.
Rethinking American Emancipation by
On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, an event that soon became a bold statement of presidential power, a dramatic shift in the rationale for fighting the Civil War, and a promise of future freedom for four million enslaved Americans. But the document marked only a beginning; freedom's future was anything but certain. Thereafter, the significance of both the Proclamation and of emancipation assumed new and diverse meanings, as African Americans explored freedom and the nation attempted to rebuild itself. Despite the sweeping power of Lincoln's Proclamation, struggle, rather than freedom, defined emancipation's broader legacy. The nine essays in this volume unpack the long history and varied meanings of the emancipation of American slaves. Together, the contributions argue that 1863 did not mark an end point or a mission accomplished in black freedom; rather, it initiated the beginning of an ongoing, contested process.
Films on Demand is a streaming video database of thousands of educational films, documentaries, and news programs. Films on Demand is available for on-campus and remote use by current UA students, faculty, staff, and emeritus.
Below are links to several select full video and video segments about the history and impact of Juneteenth - Freedom Day - Emancipation Day available on Films on Demand. You'll need to login with your UAnet ID and password to view these films.
Emancipation Proclamation Celebrates 150 Years and an Enduring Power to Inspire
Issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the defining documents of American democracy and is rarely available for public viewing. PBS NewsHour correspondent Ray Suarez talks to Annette Gordon-Reed of Harvard University about the importance of this artifact. Original broadcast date: December 31, 2012
Duration: 0:07:38
The Civil War: Episode 3-Forever Free (1862)
This program charts the events that led to Lincoln’s decision to set the slaves free. Convinced by July 1862 that emancipation had become morally and militarily crucial to the future of the Union, Lincoln had to bide his time and wait for a victory to issue his proclamation. But as the year wore on, there were no Union victories to be had, thanks to the brilliance of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. The episode comes to a climax in September 1862 with Lee’s invasion of Maryland and the bloody struggle on the banks of Antietam Creek. The emancipation of the slaves follows. Distributed by PBS Distribution. A part of the series The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns.
Duration 01:15:53
