What is Juneteenth

For Texas slaves in particular, the Juneteenth declaration signaled the beginning of a new life. In the context of significant dates in American history, the ...

She has also attended Angelo State University for graduate courses and studied Texas Family Law at Sam Houston State University. She lives just on the edge of the Chihuahua desert in west Texas. Instead of the American dream, after the Civil War came a baptism into the realm of racism in the form of Jim Crow laws which re-segregated the south. And white people own 86 percent of the wealth in the United States versus less than three percent for Blacks. Depending on when you were born, the experience of each generation will factor into behavior and outcomes in the workplace differently; meaning that inclusion is not a one-size-fits all. In the context of significant dates in American history, the day freedom is awarded becomes a milestone like no other. For Texas slaves in particular, the Juneteenth declaration signaled the beginning of a new life.

For organizer Mae Hazleton, this wasn't the first celebration of its kind, but it felt like it. "Juneteenth was made a federal holiday in 2021, but this, for me ...

"Juneteenth is about freedom, and there are still freedoms that the African-American community doesn't enjoy — being healthy, wealthy and wise," said Hazleton. "We want you to learn about the community and what we are offering, but we also want you to enjoy the food. It's a community effort to get these kids where they need to be," Rivera said. People crowded a booth to register to vote then hugged each other before sitting down to eat together as a new community. "I have a variety of resources, everything from nutrition and exercising to preventing chronic diseases. "Juneteenth was made a federal holiday in 2021, but this, for me, is the inaugural event. It was co-sponsored by All About the Ballots, GoMountDora, Community Development Corporation of Mount Dora, Black Voters Matter, Black Women’s Roundtable and Peachy Enterprises.

That June 19 in 1865, the day we now celebrate as a nation, was the day that Black Texans officially received some of the stalest news in American history.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. She’d heard the testimonies of those who’d had to navigate both the tragedy of slavery and the terror of emancipation. I regret not asking more questions about our family, about her life in Pelham. As more folks in Clarice’s generation pass away, we are losing the final physical links to those who know our history — who are our history. Gen. Joseph Jones Reynolds, a commander of the Department of Texas during Reconstruction, commented in 1868, “The murder of Negroes is so common as to render it impossible to keep an accurate account of them.” The Equal Justice Initiative has tried, reporting that more than 2,000 Black women, men and children were victims of racial terrorist lynchings during Reconstruction, which lasted from 1865 to 1877. I was born in Texas, as were my parents and most of my kin, all the way back to at least the 19th century, when some of them were enslaved. We can do no better this Juneteenth than to spend time with the elders who are still with us. Most of all, I think of how each year, my cousin Rhodia Fay would rise before our congregation and recite James Weldon Johnson’s “The Crucifixion” a long dramatic poem detailing Christ’s murder. I don’t even have to explain the absurdity of the F.B.I. wishing us all a happy Martin Luther King’s Birthday. I was raised an evangelical Christian and sometimes think of all those Easter Sundays spent in church. If we got upset about some Juneteenth ice cream, imagine how those roughly 250,000 enslaved Texans must have felt when they found out they had been the victims of horrendous overtime fraud. Then I asked myself, how exactly should the whole nation celebrate a day like this? “Lemme know when the reparations check arrives.”

Author and journalist Mark Whitaker visits Texas, where his great-grandfather became a free man in 1865, and meets with relatives for whom Juneteenth ...

"You'd get to eat," laughed Bernice. "And then we would eat and go back to the field!" That's truly an Independence Day. It's not only for just Black people, but it's for America." My great-grandfather stayed close to the land, but he was able to get some education. And John is the president and CEO of the Cen-Tex African American Chamber of Commerce, which boosts Black businesses. Because he was blind and he couldn't see us." He became a fine statistician and historian. They waited, and for years." "They remained sharecropping," Angela said. John said, "You had slaves that were freed, but really had nowhere to go. The tombstones are in a tiny, well-kept, all-Black cemetery, down a dirt road just outside the town of Jewett, about halfway between Houston and Dallas. "He was blind. It was 157 years ago today, on June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger went from the piers to downtown Galveston reading General Order Number 3, which said that "all slaves are free.

On Sunday, churchgoers will celebrate Juneteenth during their worship services. Members of the clergy reflect on the role of the church and the holiday ...

"Our faith requires us to be active in restoring and repairing the wrongs that stem from America's original sin of slavery." In Galveston, Texas — the birthplace of Juneteenth — congregants at Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church will begin their service at 11 a.m. and end the day with a freedom march. We call that End Slavery for Good, ensuring that no one be subject to slavery, even as punishment for a crime," says the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi. Fields says that "they were believing God to liberate them" – not Abraham Lincoln nor their slave masters. Juneteenth is also called Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day and Freedom Day. It's the most recent new federal holiday, since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was introduced in 1983. Generations later, this hymn is still sung to remember how it felt to be a slave and to continue to seek equality and justice.

With live performances, vendors, food and dance, community members gathered in celebration for Juneteenth in downtown Boise.

The Patriot Front members were arrested on June 11 for conspiracy to riot after a 911 caller alerted the police to a group of men crowding inside in a U-Haul truck. It is where I love and where I want to be,” Owens said. “If you pull out your camera, and in every one of your group photos everybody looks only like you, then you’ve probably got some work to do. “Juneteenth is a space of so much Black joy for people across the diaspora. Last year, the state and federal government signed a law designating June 19 — known as Juneteenth — as an official holiday. Holiday celebrations took place across the state with events happening in Twin Falls and Lapwai. Students at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg will also celebrate the date on Monday.