🌅 Where Did Juneteenth Come From?

SOURCE

National Archives Catalog

WHAT TO KNOW

• In June 1865, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and roughly 2,000 Union soldiers were dispatched to Galveston, Texas, tasked with enforcing President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and bringing the former Confederate-held territory back under federal control. On June 19, Granger began his mission by issuing five General Orders, the third of which released some 250,000 people from centuries of bondage by declaring all slaves in Texas to be free Americans.

WHY IT MATTERS

• By the time Granger arrived in Texas, President Lincoln’s proclamation had been in effect for more than two years, though hundreds of thousands of people remained enslaved across the former confederacy as territories resisted. Texas had relatively few Union soldiers to enforce the proclamation’s guarantee prior to Granger’s arrival, leaving many enslaved people ignorant of the proclamation’s effect or the fact the Civil War had functionally ended some months prior. General Order No. 3 ended that obscurity and established the basis of the Juneteenth holiday.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Experts say spontaneous Juneteenth celebrations began in Texas almost immediately after the order, with people referring to the celebration as “Juneteenth,” “Emancipation Day,” “Freedom Day,” or “Jubilee Day.” Today, Juneteenth has grown from a regional celebration in Texas to America’s second Independence Day.