What is Juneteenth?
A: Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the
emancipation of enslaved African Americans.
Juneteenth marks the anniversary of the announcement of
what?
A: General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger on June 19,
1865, proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in
Texas.
Where did the holiday originate?
A: In Galveston, Texas.
When was the day first recognized as a federal holiday?
A: In June 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National
Independence Day Act into law.
Early celebrations date to 1866, at first involving
church-centered community gatherings in what state?
A: Texas.
They spread across the South and became more
commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on a what?
A: A food festival.
Beginning with Texas by proclamation in
1938, and by
legislation in 1979, each U.S. state and the District of Columbia have
formally done what?
A: Recognized the holiday in some way.
With its adoption in certain parts of Mexico, the
holiday became what?
A: An international holiday.
Juneteenth is celebrated by the Mascogos, descendants
of Black Seminoles who escaped from slavery in 1852 and settled where?
A: In Coahuila, Mexico.
Celebratory traditions often include public readings of
what?
A: The Emancipation Proclamation.
In 2021, Juneteenth became the first new federal
holiday since what?
A: Since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was adopted in 1983.
The holiday is considered what?
A: The "longest-running African-American holiday".
It has been called America's what?
A: America’s second Independence Day".
When is Juneteenth usually celebrated?
A: On the third Saturday in June.
Early celebrations consisted of what?
A: Baseball, fishing, and rodeos.
African Americans were often prohibited from using
public facilities for their celebrations, so they were often held where?
A: At churches or near water.
Celebrations were also characterized by elaborate what?
A: Large meals and people wearing their best clothing.
It was common for former enslaved people and their
descendants to make a pilgrimage to where?
A: Galveston.
Red food and drinks are traditional during the
celebrations, including what?
A: Red velvet cake and strawberry soda.
Juneteenth celebrations often include lectures and
exhibitions on what?
A: African American culture.
The modern holiday places much emphasis upon what?
A: Teaching about African American heritage.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation on January 1, 1863, doing what?
A: Freeing the enslaved people in Texas and all the rebellious parts of
Southern secessionist states of the Confederacy.
Enforcement of the Proclamation generally relied upon
what?
A: The advance of Union troops.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared an end
to slavery in the Confederate States, it did not end slavery in states that
what?
A: Remained in the Union.
For a short while after the fall of the Confederacy,
slavery remained legal in what two Union border states?
A: Delaware and
Kentucky.
Those enslaved people were freed with the ratification
of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which did what?
A: Abolished chattel slavery nationwide on December 6, 1865.
Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation during the Civil War, announcing what on September 22, 1862?
A: That if the rebels did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union, all
slaves in the Confederacy would be freed on the first day of the following
year.
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final
Emancipation Proclamation, declaring what?
A: That all enslaved persons in the Confederate States of America in
rebellion and not in Union hands were freed.
By 1865, there were how many enslaved people in Texas?
A: An estimated 250,000.
Despite the surrender of Confederate General-in-Chief
Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, the western
Confederate Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not surrender until when?
A: June 2.
One year later, on June 19, 1866, freedmen in Texas
organized what?
A: The first of what became annual commemorations of "Jubilee Day".
Early celebrations were used as political rallies to do
what?
A: To give voting instructions to newly freed African Americans.
In some cities, black people were barred from using
public parks because of what?
A: State-sponsored segregation of facilities.
Across parts of Texas, freed people pooled their funds
to purchase land for what?
A: To hold their celebrations.
The day was first celebrated in Austin in 1867 under
the auspices of what?
A: The Freedmen's Bureau, and it had been listed on a "calendar of public
events" by 1872.
That year, black leaders in Texas raised $1,000 for the
purchase of what?
A: 10 acres of land, today known as Houston's Emancipation Park, to
celebrate Juneteenth.
When did the Black community begin using the word
Juneteenth for Jubilee Day?
A: Early in the 1890s.
In the early 20th century, economic and political
forces led to what?
A: A decline in Juneteenth celebrations.
From 1890 to 1908, Texas and all former Confederate
states passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively did what?
A: Disenfranchised black people, excluding them from the political process.
White-dominated state legislatures passed what?
A: Jim Crow laws imposing second-class status.
From 1936 to 1951, the Texas State Fair served as what?
A: A destination for celebrating the holiday, contributing to its revival.
In 1936, how many people joined the holiday's
celebration in Dallas?
A: An estimated 150,000 to 200,000.
From 1940 through 1970, in the second wave of the Great
Migration, more than five million black people left Texas,
Louisiana and
other parts of the South for where?
A: The North and the West Coast.
In 1945, Juneteenth was introduced in
San Francisco by
whom?
A: A migrant from Texas, Wesley Johnson.