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Juneteenth and Other Lesser Known African-American Historical Culture

Khalid Elhassan June 15, 2020 34 min

Colonel Tye - American Revolutionary War — Colonel Tye as portrayed in a PBS documentary. PBS

38. Celebrating Juneteenth

Juneteenth celebrants, in the late nineteenth century. Austin History Center

The freed black people of Galveston immediately celebrated their liberty. On the first anniversary the following year, June 19^th, 1866, freedmen throughout Texas celebrated what was then known as “Jubilee Day”. It later came to be more commonly known as Juneteenth. Despite harassment from racists and restrictions by officials, such as prohibiting blacks from celebrating in segregated public parks, the annual commemoration gained in popularity.

Some black communities pooled funds to buy land on which to celebrate Juneteenth, and by the end of the nineteenth century, the annual celebration was drawing thousands. In 1980, Texas finally made Juneteenth a state holiday. Most of the rest of the country followed suit in subsequent years, making Juneteenth either a holiday or a day of commemoration. The delayed freeing of Texas’ slaves was emblematic of the far greater delay in freeing all of America’s slaves – an opportunity missed at the country’s founding.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.