From Wikipedia:
Juneteenth (officially Juneteenth National Independence Day) is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining June and nineteenth, it is celebrated on the anniversary of the order by Major General Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865 (two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued). Originating in Galveston, Juneteenth has since been observed annually in various parts of the United States, often broadly celebrating African-American culture. The day was recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
If you would like to know more about Juneteenth, Smithsonian offers a good summary and New York Times has a longer take.
I’m happy to see the holiday. I literally just found out about it last week, when I started getting notifications from one of my apps, and thought how nice it was that it fell on a Monday and how long it would take before it was no longer June 19 and instead the 3rd Monday in June.
Grrr. I forgot to ask: has it been a Federal holiday before this year?
Just reread and saw it as Federal since 2021. I wonder why I wasn’t alerted last year? I definitely had the same app. Off to look at my calendar.
Observance of holidays may delayed sometimes because new holidays have to be included (or not) in union contracts, which run for years at a time, I’ve been told. MLK Day did not take effect immediately, either, iirc.
Juneteenth is one of five date-specific federal holidays along with New Year’s Day (January 1), Independence Day (July 4), Veterans Day (November 11), and Christmas Day (December 25). If you read more about it, you can find out that the the observance of the 19th and not just randomly a “Monday in June” is significant to the community 🙂
I’m so glad we celebrate the actual date, moving some things to a convenient Monday is just not right. Thankfully Veterans Day (aka Armistice Day) is back on November 11th were it belongs. Happy Juneteenth to everyone everywhere!
Happy Juneteenth!
+1
😁 and a happy Juneteenth to y’all!
Happy Juneteeth! Even though its a Federal holiday my company doesn’t recognize it. But we have 3 floating days per year to use at any time so I took it off.
That’s unfair, I hope the situation changes! But I’m glad you get to celebrate after all 🙂
Unless you are a federal employee, it is very rare to get all federal holidays off. Even when I worked at a bank and it was a “bank holiday”, we were still *strongly* encouraged to work it. These days I get New Year, MLK, Memorial, July 4th, Labor, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
It’s amazing what Opal Lee, the grandmother of Juneteenth, did to get Juneteenth a federal holiday. For those who may not know, Opal Lee is from Fort Worth and made it her mission to have everyone in the U.S. know about Juneteenth.
Even though I studied the time period in my American history classes, I did not know about Juneteenth all that much until I moved to Fort Worth.
There is a beautiful interview with Opal Lee on YouTube, called Juneteenth: Reflections of Freedom https://youtu.be/EMe4sz1wn30, where she talks about moving to Fort Worth and finding families observing individually- and how it turned into a community celebration in Sycammore Park. Mentioning other figures like Dr Ronald Meyers and Ms Lenora Rolla and all the context of the age.
She walked the 2.5 miles today in near 100 degree (F) heat in south Fort Worth. The 2.5 miles marks the 2.5 years it took for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday.
The things we learn is wonderful. 😎
Oops, the 2.5 miles is for the 2.5 years it took for Galveston to find out about the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery. 🤦♀️
Thank you for doing this post. Made me feel included in the BDH.
I see you. Please know there are lots of kinds of folks here in the BDH and lots of allies.
Thank you!! Happy Juneteenth to you all as well. It’s the humanity for me. That’s why you two have been and will continue to be my favorite authors.
Happy Juneteenth and thanks for posting about it ☺️
I concur with other folks. Thanks so much for posting. Ilona and ModR, you are the greatest. Hugs!!!
As I do on every holiday, I have got to make the food. Charleston Red Rice this year.
Happy Juneteenth! How nice to have a brand new holiday where you can start fresh traditions. Is there anything associated with it already? Foods or decorations or suchlike?
Juneteenth has been celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s. The only thing that is brand new is cementing is as a US federal holiday in 2021 :).
Reading about it, a lot of traditions happen around gatherings: picnics, fairs, rodeos – community get-togethers. One particular thing you can find mentioned are red foods 🙂 https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a36479941/juneteenth-food-traditions/
US friends, please forgive our ignorance from the rest of the world, and let us know more in the comments!
Red is a very popular holiday colour it seems 😉
I’ve been to various Caribbean based events on August 1st which have generally been very party and carnival like so I wondered if it was similar.
I’ve previously signed several petitions for UK to recognise August 1st officially but nothing yet so the US has got us beat.
I grew up in California and never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to Texas to attend Baylor University. To my knowledge it has always been celebrated as a holiday in Texas. In Waco we had parades, picnics, and cookouts to commemorate. The community was very involved and did a great job of organizing events.
I’ve lived in the South for 45 out of my 48 years, and it wasn’t until I moved to Central Louisiana a couple years back I even heard about this holiday!
It really needs more people to be informed about it, so Thank You for posting this!
Happy Juneteenth, and especially with intentions for education and healing. ❤️🩹
Thank you for this amazing community… there’s no blog like this one.
Thank you for the Juneteenth post and use of the image.
Happy Juneteenth! I’ve been an avid follower of HA for years and appreciate their commitment to diversity. Jim, as an African American character, has played a key role in the KD world and even scored 2 novellas. Seeing how Kate and Curran were motivated by their past traumas and were able to heal and mature over the time they were away from the Pack helped me to understand Jim better. Jim has his demons, too, but as Curran said the state of the Pack isn’t his fault. It was already broken when he got it and built on a bad foundation. He’s kept it together all day these years and keeps showing up. He’s far from perfect but he’s not a villain. Just like Kate and Curran and really all of us, his past is driving him for now in unhealthy ways but he can grow and change just like our favorite characters and hopefully us to break the shackles of the past.
Today is the first time I learned what juneteenth is for! Thank you!
Happy Juneteenth! My job made it a holiday this year so I got to spend it with my little one. My parents took me to Juneteenth celebrations when I was a kid but it still feels like a very unknown holiday. Thank you for making me feel seen.
Thank you for posting this information. I knew about the celebration but didn’t know the reason behind it.
So happy to have a brand new federal holiday! Not only does it bring national recognition to an obviously important event that was previously largely unknown in large swaths of the country, it meant my niece, whom I haven’t seen since 2019, was able to visit for a three day weekend. So much joy!!!!!
I have a question for ModR about past blog posts. Is there a way to archive these so the access to them is easier than going page by page without a way to return to where one was? I find content and answers about the earlier books to be fascinating and informative. These just make the entire experience of HA world so much deeper and complex. Thanks! You are truly appreciated.
Hi Sherri,
You can use the search function, it’s at the bottom of each page- on the banner, where Dina’s ear is.
The posts are also grouped by category- under each title you can see tags: Kate Daniels, Snippets, Hidden Legacy, Writing etc. If you click on a tag you will be taken to all the posts in that subject 🙂 (and ofc you can always use them as a search keyword).
Thanks! That will be very helpful. I didn’t make the connection that the tags were a search helper–I was going page by page.
Thanks so much for this post. One of my favorite things about the HA universe(s) is that there is wide representation and it never feels forced. It really matters to those of us that may not be exactly ‘mainstream’.
Thank you for posting & celebrating Juneteenth!!
Thanks for posting about Juneteenth. It is great that you use this blog to promote knowledge and understanding. This is an important event I didn’t know about until I attended a celebration about 5 years ago.
Thank you for posting this.