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misc | <strong>June</strong>teenth<br />
By linda brown<br />
<strong>June</strong>teenth<br />
National Independence Day!<br />
Although it has been long celebrated in the African<br />
American community, this monumental event<br />
remains largely unknown to most Americans.<br />
<strong>June</strong>teenth, official name of the federal holiday, <strong>June</strong>teenth<br />
National Independence Day which commemorates the<br />
end of slavery in the United States and is observed annually<br />
on <strong>June</strong> 19. The name is derived from the words ‘<strong>June</strong>’ and<br />
‘nineteenth’.<br />
It is also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee<br />
Day, <strong>June</strong>teenth Independence Day, and Black Independence Day.<br />
During the American Civil War, Pres. Abraham Lincoln issued<br />
the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared more than three<br />
million slaves living in the Confederate states to be free.<br />
It was more than two years later in 1865 before the news<br />
reached African Americans living in Galveston, Texas from U.S.<br />
General Gordon Granger, where he informed them that slavery<br />
had been abolished and they were officially free. The former<br />
slaves immediately began to celebrate with prayer, feasting,<br />
song, and dance.<br />
94 | june <strong>2023</strong> | www.<strong>Atlantic</strong><strong>Ave</strong>Magazine.com<br />
COPYRIGHTED<br />
The following year, on <strong>June</strong> 19, the first official <strong>June</strong>teenth celebrations<br />
took place in Texas. The original observances included<br />
reading of spirituals, prayer meetings and feasting. Within a few<br />
years, African Americans in other states were celebrating the<br />
day as well, making it an annual tradition. The date continues to<br />
be the oldest known tradition honoring the end of slavery in the<br />
United States. Today, celebrations span the globe and here in the<br />
United States its typically celebrated with prayer and religious<br />
services, educational events, speeches, and festivals with music,<br />
food, and dancing.<br />
<strong>June</strong>teenth became a state holiday in Texas in 1980, and several<br />
other states subsequently followed suit. In 2021 <strong>June</strong>teenth<br />
was made a federal holiday. The bill’s passage made <strong>June</strong>teenth<br />
the nation’s 12th federal holiday. The last time the government<br />
added a new holiday to its calendar was in 1983, when the third<br />
Monday of January was declared Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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