Today is Juneteenth
Cecilia Sepp, CAE, ACNP, LPEC
As a consultant, I usually work on most federal holidays – at least a half day. I do try to reflect on the meaning of each holiday and not just treat it like a Saturday. While it’s nice to have time off, in the United States many federal holidays are meant to honor an event or a group of people. Juneteenth honors an event and reminds us that access to information should be a human right.
Juneteenth is a somewhat newer federal holiday; it was not recognized or codified as a legal federal holiday until 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the law making it one.
My husband and I were talking about Juneteenth and we didn’t know why June 19 was the date for this holiday, since it is not related to any dates around the end of the Civil War or the date the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. Being curious people and wanting to understand the meaning of the holiday, we went to the Google Chrome browser and asked about it. Here is what I learned from Google A.I. Assistant:
Key Facts about Juneteenth:
Official Name: Juneteenth National Independence Day.
Significance: It is the first new federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
Observation: The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger announced the end of slavery in Galveston, Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Origin: While celebrated locally since 1866, the push for federal recognition gained significant momentum in 2020, leading to bipartisan passage in Congress.
If you live in the DC area, you may remember that Juneteenth was an official local holiday but not everyone observed it. But now we all get to be reminded that in the late 19th century news traveled very slowly. Go back and look at the Observation note in the list above: Slaves in Texas did not know for over 2 years that they were legally free.
Obviously, that is the sort of thing you would want to know sooner rather than later. I’m sure some people made sure that information was kept secret so that they could continue using slave labor. This is why access to information should be a human right – think of all those people who didn’t get the message and had to keep living a life of slavery.
When you think of Juneteenth, imagine the shock and surprise of the slaves in Galveston. I can’t imagine that they were happy to hear the news so long after the law was signed – personally, I’d be angry to learn I’d been held prisoner after I’d been freed.
People are not property. Days like Juneteenth should give us pause to remember those honored on this day and it should remind us to continue working towards a world where all humans are treated with respect and dignity.