JUNETEENTH is a holiday that celebrates the Emancipation of African Americans from slavery but has come to signify much more. It is celebrated in June, the month that the last African Americans were informed of their Emancipation.

On September 22, 1862, during the Civil War (1861-1865), President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. The Civil War ended in April 1865. Following the end of the War, US Government officials were dispatched to order southern states to comply with the Emancipation Proclamation and by June they arrived in Texas.

On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger, representing the United States Government, landed at Galveston Texas and issued a general order from the President of the United States that declared that all slaves were free.

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. What began as a Texas holiday to celebrate Emancipation, became a holiday celebrated throughout the US. Today, Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement. It is a day, a week, and in some areas a month, marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics, and family gatherings. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing. It is a time for assessment, self-improvement, and for planning the future.

Juneteenth has come to symbolize for many African Americans what the 4th of July symbolizes for all Americans: FREEDOM.
 

J u n e t e e n t h

Abernethy, Francis Edward [ed]. Juneteenth Texas : essays in African American folklore. Denton, Tex : University of North Texas Press, 1996.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Barrett, Anna Pearl. Juneteenth! : celebrating freedom in Texas. Austin, Tex. : Eakin Press, c1999.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Branch, Muriel Miller. Juneteenth : freedom day. New York : Cobblehill/Dutton Books, 1998.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Ellison, Ralph. Juneteenth : a novel. New York : Random House, c1999.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Berger, Raoul. The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights. Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, c1989.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Brotherhood of Liberty [Author]. Justice and jurisprudence; an inquiry concerning the Constitutional limitations of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. New York, Negro Universities Press [1969]
Search IUCAT for Availability

Davis, David Brion. The Emancipation moment. Gettysburg, Pa. : Gettysburg College, 1983.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Franklin, John Hope. The Emancipation Proclamation. Garden City, N.Y., Anchor Books [1965, c1963].
Search IUCAT for Availability

Halbrook, Stephen P. Freedmen, The Fourteenth Amendment, and the right to bear arms, 1866-1876. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, c1998.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Jackson, Donald Wilson. Even the children of strangers : equality under the U.S. Constitution / Donald W. Jackson. Lawrence, Kan. : University Press of Kansas, c1992.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Klingaman, William K. Abraham Lincoln and the road to Emancipation, 1861-1865. New York : Viking, c2001.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Mathews, John Mabry. Legislative and judicial history of the Fifteenth Amendment. New York, Da Capo Press, 1971 [c1909]
Search IUCAT for Availability

Meyer, Howard N. The amendment that refused to die : equality and justice deferred : the history of the Fourteenth Amendment. Lanham, Md. : Madison Books, 2000.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Perry, Michael J. We the people : the Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court. New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Richards, David A. J. Conscience and the constitution : history, theory, and law of the Reconstruction amendments. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1993.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Swinney, Everette. Suppressing the Ku Klux Klan : the enforcement of the Reconstruction amendments, 1870-1877. New York : Garland, 1987.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Thomas, Velma Maia. Freedom's children : the journey from Emancipation into the Twentieth Century. New York : Crown Publishers, c2000.
Search IUCAT for Availability

Vorenberg, Michael. Final freedom : the Civil War, the abolition of slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Search IUCAT for Availability