Juneteenth Observances Spread From State to State, Except for These
How Geography and Politics Obstructed the Celebration of Juneteenth.
After Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed an executive order on May 24, 2024 and West Virginia Governor signed similar legislation on June 4 of 2024, making Juneteenth an official state holiday only four states don’t recognize the holiday; Hawaii, North Dakota, and Montana still have no official state celebration for the holiday. Actually, a dozen states don’t recognize the day as a permanent state paid holiday, but most recognize the day in other ways, like a day of observance or through a proclamation.
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Indiana
- Mississippi
- Montana
- New Hampshire
- North Dakota
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
But since news of the emancipation didn’t reach 250,000 slaves in Texas until 1865, two years and a half years after they were no longer slaves, these states may come online to celebrate the occasion in the next couple of years since Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.
On June 19, 1865, Texans were astonished when Gen. Gordon Granger accompanied by a contingent of Union soldiers, mostly Black rode into Galveston, TX and went plantation to plantation to announce the official end of slavery a full two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and astonished Black and White citizens marked the occasion with relative enthusiasm, depending on which side of slavery and the Civil War you stood on.
The following year in 1866, Galveston held the first Juneteenth celebration in the nation. Still, it would be another 180 years before the observance would become a federal holiday, when President Joe Biden signed legislation in 2021 making Juneteenth a federal holiday.
But in the intermittent years, not a lot went on in many northern corners of the country in terms of celebrating what was essentially a local or state holiday, until Black Americans began moving to states outside of Texas and migrating to cities in the north, did the observance begin to spread and become more widely known.
But why in both occurrences did it take so long to come to the forefront and enforce the law, let alone the observance of the holiday?
The story goes that the Emancipation Proclamation could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the western most Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. However, many Black and White historians are of the school of thought that the delay in getting the news of freedom to slaves in Texas was deliberately side-tracked to keep the institution of slavery alive as long as they possibly could.
After being freed from slavery, many former slaves moved to neighbor states such as Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, taking the tradition of Juneteenth with them. These individuals brought their culture and traditions to their new homes, including the celebration of Juneteenth.
In the 1890s Oklahoma and Florida were the first states outside of Texas to commemorate Juneteenth and it would still take decades – and in some cases more than a century – before Black people in states north of the Mason-Dixon would become aware of traditional observances and embrace Juneteenth as more than a footnote in a history book and bring it to life in their local communities.
The Great Migration of Blacks from the South to northern cities in search of opportunity saw them bringing geographically and culturally centered African American traditions with them to the cities and communities that would be their new homes for generations to come.
The historic Great Migration of the 1910s to the 1970s coupled with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s focused national attention on the unequal and unfair treatment of Black Americans including the whitewashing of Black history. But in the case of Juneteenth celebrations, the observance was of relatively minor importance and often went overlooked on the calendar of historic events.
The observance of the Juneteenth holiday didn’t really get a foothold in the Midwest until the 1990s, when cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh began more robust and historically significant celebrations.
In Chicago, the spirit of Juneteenth has thrived for four decades through vibrant festivals, cultural events, and communal gatherings that honor Black history and culture, although it was not proclaimed an official holiday until it became a federal holiday in June 2021.
So it took three white men, Abe Lincoln, Gen. Gordon Granger and the then governor of Texas combined with the pressure that generations of Black Americans brought to bear directly and indirectly on recognizing the history of slavery and Jim Crow that these important occasions rose to national recognition, ultimately elevating Juneteenth the status of a federal holiday.
Until recent years, with the exception of Texas, all states that recognize Juneteenth as a public holiday commemorated it as a day of observance years before it became an official state holiday. Florida, Oklahoma and Minnesota were the first states outside Texas to commemorate Juneteenth as a day of observance in the 1890s. Still in the 1990s the historic celebration for freed slaves was not widely celebrated in urban minority populations in the north.
Much like the enslaved people in Texas learned they were freed on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the rest of the country got the news, the event known as Juneteenth was a blip in history books and not much was made of what was essentially Emancipation Day for slaves at least two and a half years earlier.
The Proclamation on Juneteenth Day of Observance states:
“On Juneteenth, we recommit ourselves to the work of equity, equality, and justice. And, we celebrate the centuries of struggle, courage, and hope that have brought us to this time of progress and possibility….”
Enjoy!