By Marian Wright Edelman
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the bill that had been passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and 415-14 in the House to establish Juneteenth National Independence Day, June 19, as a federal holiday. Juneteenth marks the jubilant day in 1865 when many of the more than 250,000 people who were enslaved in Texas finally learned they were legally free. This deliberately delayed news was delivered by federal troops arriving in Galveston after the end of the Civil War, reaching them more than two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, that freed all people who were enslaved in the Confederate states.
Honoring Watch Night, or Freedom’s Eve, on December 31 is a separate tradition in many Black churches and communities that commemorates that night in 1862 when enslaved people who were aware of President Lincoln’s intentions gathered and waited for the official news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. But that declaration of freedom was withheld from enslaved people in many places still under Confederate rule for as long as possible. Texas was the last state where the truth was finally revealed, and so we honor Juneteenth because, in my beloved friend and role model Fannie Lou Hamer’s eternal words, nobody’s free until everybody’s free.
Many Black families have celebrated Juneteenth for generations, a tradition that began in Texas almost immediately following the first “Jubilee Day.” In 1968, during the Poor People’s Campaign, tens of thousands of people came to Washington, D.C. for a rally honoring June 19 as “Solidarity Day.” Just weeks after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, Rev. Ralph Abernathy said that rally brought together all of us determined to “fulfill [Dr. King’s] prophecy of a united, decent America, dedicated anew to the concept of justice for all.” The drive to make Juneteenth a national holiday, led by tireless advocates like Mrs. Opal Lee, was another long-awaited milestone. One hundred and sixty years after the first Juneteenth, this year’s celebration is occurring at another inflection point as Americans are grappling with what our nation’s promised freedom really means, and whether those promises are indeed big enough to cover all Americans. From protests defending immigrants’ rights to those opposing dictators and kings, the struggle to define equality and liberty and justice for all is churning in cities and suburbs and small towns across the country. Where will it go next?
The Juneteenth holiday is not just a historic marker; it’s a mirror that reflects both the resilience and celebratory joy of generations of African Americans and the ongoing need to ensure that rights declared become rights realized. This year’s observance is an opportunity to focus on the day’s full meaning. In the face of sweeping attempts to sanitize storytelling about our nation’s past, commemorating Juneteenth invites honoring the full truth of American history, and recognizing that the fight for true freedom is still urgent in the face of new efforts to limit rights for some Americans instead of protecting them for everyone. Will we keep struggling to close the gap between the promise and the practice of justice, and to see that freedom reaches everyone, everywhere, without delay? Once again Juneteenth reminds us above all: nobody’s free until everybody’s free.