US celebrates Juneteenth, the newest federal holiday

By Firdevs Bulut Kartal

TORONTO (AA) - Juneteenth, which was declared a federal holiday in reference to the end of slavery in the US on June 19, 1865, was celebrated on Monday with events in many states.

The holiday commemorates the day when enslaved Black people living in Galveston, Texas finally learned they were free, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Texas was the last Confederate state to have the proclamation announced.

As part of remembering the violence and oppression against Black citizens of the US, various events were held over the weekend and on Monday.

Celebrations marking Juneteenth, which President Joe Biden declared a federal holiday in 2021, took place in the capital Washington, D.C., and in many states including Maryland and California, mostly in the form of festivals and picnics.

“Juneteenth is about Americans feeling the progress we can make for America. It’s about remembering history, not erasing it. It’s about reading books, not banning them. That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation,” Biden said on Twitter.

Many federal and local officials also posted messages on social media about the meaning of the day.

Juneteenth is known to some in the US as the country’s “second Independence Day.” Observed each year on June 19, the holiday marks the end of slavery in Texas at the end of the Civil War.

Despite then-President Abraham Lincoln's issuing of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of Jan. 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states engaged in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free,” slavery continued in the southern states due to the ongoing civil war with the "Confederate Army," which did not recognize the federal government.

On June 19, 1865, also known as Freedom Day or Liberation Day, Major General Gordon Granger declared that after the civil war between the northern and southern states of the US was won by the "Union Army," also known as the "Army of the North" or the "Federal army," he had given the order declaring enslaved African Americans free in the city of Galveston.

In the state of Minnesota, the idea of declaring June 19 a federal holiday began with the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which started with the death of Black American George Floyd as a result of police violence on May 25, 2020 and gained momentum during the weeks-long protests.