Juneteenth

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June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, is a day that recognizes the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19th, 1865, two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to inform slaveholders that they must legally those people who remained enslaved. This threat of force against the holdouts successfully ensured that the city’s remaining slaves, many of whom were already aware of slavery’s end but lacked the power to stand up to their slavers, were freed. Juneteenth has become an important day to many Black Americans and allies in the fight against racism.

Below you’ll find articles and exhibits about Juneteenth, which will automatically update as we add new stories about Juneteenth. As you scroll through these pages, you’ll understand the day’s history, efforts to increase awareness, the fight for it to be recognized as a holiday, and current events celebrating the day and its meaning.

Juneteenth National Freedom Day

June 19, 2012

Every year, Black Americans recognize the day when soldiers arrived in Galveston to force slaveholders to follow the president’s orders.

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Frederick Douglass Statue to Be Unveiled in Capitol on Juneteenth Day

June 17, 2013

A statue of a notable abolitionist was scheduled for unveiling on a day celebrating the end of slavery in the USA.

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Juneteenth: A New Birth of Freedom

June 19, 2013

June 19th remains an important day of celebration for the Americans who descend from formerly enslaved people.

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Celebrating Juneteenth with Remembrance and Resistance

June 20, 2017

In honor of Juneteenth, the African American holiday celebrating the freeing of slaves within the Confederate states on June 19th, 1865, black groups celebrated in different ways. Find out how some chose to commemorate this day.

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The Meaning of Independence Day for Milwaukee’s People of Color

July 4, 2017

This article explores why Independence Day and patriotism in America mean something different to the African/African-American community than to white Americans. It shows how Black Americans have endured vastly differing experiences from white Americans, because unalienable rights supposed afforded in America do not apply, have not applied, to them.

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Juneteenth and the future of Milwaukee

July 10, 2018

American descendants of slaves have celebrated Juneteenth for 153 years, but freedom remains elusive for many.

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It’s Juneteenth, and a White Nationalist Is President

June 20, 2019

With the South rising again on the watch of President Donald Trump, who plans to turn the Fourth of July this year from a celebration of America to a celebration of himself, it’s time for Americans who champion equality to begin celebrating Juneteenth.June 19, 1865 — “Juneteenth” being a combination of June and nineteenth — should remind all Americans of the long and complex fight required to end slavery here.

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Special News Series: Rising Up for Justice! – Congress approves bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday

June 17, 2021

The United States will soon have a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery. The House voted 415-14 Wednesday to make Juneteenth, or June 19th, the 12th federal holiday.

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I’m happy Juneteenth is a Federal holiday–but don’t let it be whitewashed

June 24, 2021

An Op-Ed: We should be happy to popularize and celebrate Juneteenth. But we should celebrate it with the same fervor in which it was celebrated the summer of 2020, with protests, political education, and an understanding that the house of the slavemaster still stands, despite a fresh coat of paint. We must celebrate Juneteenth knowing the kind of force it took for enslaved Black people to attain emancipation – and the equivalent political force it may take to finally and absolutely uproot the American capitalist. Wisconsin celebrated it 50th Juneteenth in 2021 with a long parade up Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, complete with Civil War re-enactors, beauty queens and kings, and Black public servants, among them County Executive David Crowley and Congresswoman Gwen Moore. This city was one of the first in the nation to celebrate the holiday.

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The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history

July 2, 2021

In the same week when Juneteenth became a national holiday, schoolteachers in Texas, where the commemoration originally marked the end of slavery in that state, could teach about these events only at their peril. An author of the original Critical Race Theory explains the consequences of “erasing” the truth about our country’s history.

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