Juneteenth: Festival – Family – Freedom

By Brenda H. Andrews
Publisher
New Journal and Guide

Observing Juneteenth is gaining in increased popularity in Hampton Roads as we can see on this event-packed Juneteenth weekend. There is an abundance of celebratory public and private events in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Chesapeake, and elsewhere. 

The story of Juneteenth is steeped in celebration that resulted from the freeing of enslaved Blacks in Texas 2 and 1/2 years after Black enslavement had ended.                                      The story has been handed down for 161 years that on June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Texas, General Gordon Granger sailed into Galveston harbor and issued a proclamation that gave freedom to a quarter of a million Blacks who were still in bondage 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln issued and was enacted on January 1, 1863. The tradition is so firmly rooted in Texas that it was made a state holiday in 1980, and Juneteenth has come to be regarded as the earliest African American holiday.

The freedom message reached different parts of America on various dates between 1863 and 1865, but migrated Black Texans continued the Juneteenth celebration as they moved to cities in the North and across the country.

Today, this holiday is observed as a federal holiday from sea to shining sea in America and beyond.

These celebratory Festivals are designed mainly  for the public. Everybody and anybody can show up at a free festival. The good, the bad, the ugly. Not everyone who attends is even aware of what is being celebrated. It’s a gathering of people hopefully having an enjoyable experience with others who may or may not be known.

While Juneteenth is a well-deserved time for a Festival, it also is a Family affair. Fest goers share some commonalities that mark us as Family because we choose to gather to celebrate. We become invested in each other just because we come together. We know something about our Juneteenth Family, even if we don’t know them.

Yet, Juneteenth  is bigger than Festival or Family. We know Family may get together a few times a year, but many  leave as they arrived with no further ties until they meet again.

There is a third reason that Juneteenth is an important holiday to observe.

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Juneteenth is also called Freedom day and that is because it marked the beginning of the end of slavery with the promise of absolute Black freedom in Order #3 that was posted on the door of a church in Galveston. The presence of Union soldiers in Galveston, including the U.S. Colored Troops, enforced the order that was critical to expanding freedom to enslaved people.

The Civil War ended in 1865, the year of Juneteenth, and was followed by a period known as Reconstruction. By the close of 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which legally ended slavery was ratified. The 14th Amendment followed in 1868, granting citizenship to Black Americans and legal and civil rights for all persons and the 15th Amendment  by 1870 guaranteed the right to vote to all men, but no women.—Black or White. 

In 1875—just  10 years after Juneteenth, the passing of the nation’s first Civil Rights Act enacted legal and civil rights for the formerly enslaved as a part of the law of the land. State legislatures in the South were directed by Black and White legislators. 

That all came to a screeching halt just eight years later in 1883 when the first Civil Rights Act was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court, ushering in almost a century of racist Jim Crow laws that made a mockery of freedom and democracy for Blacks. A reign of terror ensued that included lynchings and riotous destruction of Black lives and property.

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Voting rights that had been extended to Black men but not women in 1870 were stripped and when White women gained the right to vote in 1920, it did not include Black women. 

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was the fuel that led to a new Civil Rights Act of 1963. It took a Voting Rights Act in 1965 to guarantee the right to vote in America to Black women and Black men.

This history is important because it illustrates that freedom is fragile and definitely not free. The underlying richness of the story of Juneteenth is that the abiding commitment to freedom in America must be ongoing.

Freedom Day on Juneteenth in 2026 comes at a time when once again voting freedom for Black Americans is under assault. 

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As we observe the 250th Anniversary of our nation this year, we see the whitewashing of American history; heightened hate crimes and mass shootings; fake news and disinformation being presented as truth— all too common practices.We are living at a point in American history that is repeating an ugly part of itself before our very eyes.

And so today, we lift up Juneteenth, knowing Freedom Day  is so much more than an exercise in frivolity and pleasure, knowing there are some significant lessons we can learn from an honest look at the past, knowing that Freedom is not free.

The spirit of Juneteenth assures America that there is hope to be gained in celebrating freedom as exemplified on June 19, 1865 that began the long and courageous Black struggle for freedom.

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Dr. Maulana Karenga the founder of Kwanzaa, summed up the Juneteenth holiday thusly:

“It is not the news of the announcement of freedom or the troops who were supposed to enforce the law that brought us freedom. It was/is our own efforts, then and now, that have shaped our daily and constant quest and struggle for freedom.  

It is we, ourselves., who have carved out of the hard and resistant rock of a racist reality, places and spaces to stand in, build our lives and pursue and practice freedom and other human goods in varied ways.”

Poet Maya Angelou said this a popular poem she entitled “Still I Rise”

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

Happy Juneteenth! Happy Freedom Day!

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