We're hearing about Juneteenth more than ever in 2020, and isn't it about time.
In a story published in the Times Union on Wednesday, Amy Biancolli writes:
For African-Americans, June 19 has always been a day to celebrate freedom: freedom from slavery, all across the country, all the way to Texas, almost two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
But it’s also a reminder that the struggle for freedom isn’t over. Not then and not now, as protests continue in the weeks following George Floyd’s death at the hands, and the knee, of police. This year, for many, Juneteenth feels more relevant than ever.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order on Wednesday recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday for state employees, in recognition of the official emancipation of African Americans throughout the United States. He will also advance legislation to make Juneteenth an official state holiday next year.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan also signed an executive order declaring Juneteenth a holiday in the City of Albany.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., major American historian and host of Finding Your Roots on PBS, provides some background for the holiday. Dr. Gates visited Albany in 2009 under the sponsorship of the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, and the cosponsorship of the New York State Writers Institute.
What Is Juneteenth?
By Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (Originally posted on The Root)
The First Juneteenth
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
— General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865
When Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued the above order, he had no idea that, in establishing the Union Army’s authority over the people of Texas, he was also establishing the basis for a holiday, “Juneteenth” (“June” plus “nineteenth”), today the most popular annual celebration of emancipation from slavery in the United States. After all, by the time Granger assumed command of the Department of Texas, the Confederate capital in Richmond had fallen; the “Executive” to whom he referred, President Lincoln, was dead; and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was well on its way to ratification.
But Granger wasn’t just a few months late. The Emancipation Proclamation itself, ending slavery in the Confederacy (at least on paper), had taken effect two-and-a-half years before, and in the interim, close to 200,000 black men had enlisted in the fight. So, formalities aside, wasn’t it all over, literally, but the shouting?
It would be easy to think so in our world of immediate communication, but as Granger and the 1,800 bluecoats under him soon found out, news traveled slowly in Texas. Whatever Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered in Virginia, the Army of the Trans-Mississippi had held out until late May, and even with its formal surrender on June 2, a number of ex-rebels in the region took to bushwhacking and plunder.
That’s not all that plagued the extreme western edge of the former Confederate states. Since the capture of New Orleans in 1862, slave owners in Mississippi, Louisiana and other points east had been migrating to Texas to escape the Union Army’s reach. In a hurried re-enactment of the original Middle Passage, more than 150,000 slaves had made the trek west, according to historian Leon Litwack in his book Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. As one former slave he quotes recalled, ” ‘It looked like everybody in the world was going to Texas.’ ”
When Texas fell and Granger dispatched his now famous order No. 3, it wasn’t exactly instant magic for most of the Lone Star State’s 250,000 slaves. On plantations, masters had to decide when and how to announce the news — or wait for a government agent to arrive — and it was not uncommon for them to delay until after the harvest. Even in Galveston city, the ex-Confederate mayor flouted the Army by forcing the freed people back to work, as historian Elizabeth Hayes Turner details in her comprehensive essay, “Juneteenth: Emancipation and Memory,” in Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas.
Those who acted on the news did so at their peril. As quoted in Litwack’s book, former slave Susan Merritt recalled, ” ‘You could see lots of niggers hangin’ to trees in Sabine bottom right after freedom, ’cause they cotch ’em swimmin’ ‘cross Sabine River and shoot ’em.’ ” In one extreme case, according to Hayes Turner, a former slave named Katie Darling continued working for her mistress another six years (She ” ‘whip me after the war jist like she did ‘fore,’ ” Darling said).
Hardly the recipe for a celebration — which is what makes the story of Juneteenth all the more remarkable. Defying confusion and delay, terror and violence, the newly “freed” black men and women of Texas, with the aid of the Freedmen’s Bureau (itself delayed from arriving until September 1865), now had a date to rally around. In one of the most inspiring grassroots efforts of the post-Civil War period, they transformed June 19 from a day of unheeded military orders into their own annual rite, “Juneteenth,” beginning one year later in 1866.
” ‘The way it was explained to me,’ ” one heir to the tradition is quoted in Hayes Turner’s essay, ” ‘the 19th of June wasn’t the exact day the Negro was freed. But that’s the day they told them that they was free …"
Read more at https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-is-juneteenth/
Dr. Gates came to Albany to receive the 2009 Empire State Archives and History Award of the NYS Archives Partnership Trust. The event featured a conversation with historian and Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer. Here's a page from our Archives.
Local Juneteenth celebrations:
Albany
Noon to 5 p.m. Saturday
Events taking place on South Pearl Street in Albany, hosted by the Hosted by African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region, Inc. Open houses at the African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region (135 S Pearl Street), Coliseum Mall (153 S Pearl Street), and Root3d (165 S Pearl Street), along with performances and music. More at the African American Cultural Center's page on Facebook.
Saratoga
7 p.m. Saturday
Caffe Lena and MLK Saratoga present Juneteenth Legacy, a livestream program featuring theatrical performances by Archie, D. Colin, Tim Martin, Aaron Moore, Siobhan Shea and Julian Tushabe. Presented on YouTube. Visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd_BIOcw6PE
Schenectady
1 p.m. Saturday
The Hamilton Hill Arts Center hosts a virtual event with entertainment and workshops offered free of charge by local artists, entertainers and business owners. More at hamiltonhillartscenter.org/juneteenth-2020