Summer 2015 marked the 150th anniversary of the realization among the last enslaved people in America that they were now free under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation. On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, two months after the official end of the Civil War, General Gordon Granger, commander of the occupying troops in Texas and Oklahoma, read the Declaration aloud to those gathered. When the news of the emancipation spread among the newly freed, they responded with joy and celebration.

June 19th became an annual day of celebration of the end of slavery, and eventually became popular throughout the nation, as black Texans migrated throughout the United States in the decades after Emancipation. The term “Juneteenth” is a Black English Vernacular contraction of two words, June and nineteenth.

This annual festival of freedom continues to celebrate the end of slavery in America. Like other cities it served as the catalyst for the 150th anniversary commemoration event held in June 2015 by the local NAACP chapter in Lawrence, Kansas, with the cooperation of The Freedoms’ Frontier National Heritage Project, the Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, the Watkins Museum of History, the City of Lawrence, and the Project on the History of Black Writing.

The Lawrence, Kansas Juneteenth History exhibit consists of 5 standing panels featuring images and text depicting the lives of African Americans in the era following the Civil War. The exhibit is being offered again this year, 2016, by the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence, as a courtesy reminder of our collective past. Stop by and dedicate 30 minutes of your time to celebrate Juneteenth with us. You may learn something new!

We encourage you to share your stories on Juneteenth! Tweet #JuneteenthinLawrence @ProjectHBW.

Please consult the list below for educational resources on the history of Juneteenth:

Websites

“Juneteenth” at The Handbook of Texas Online, run by the Texas State Historical Association

“History of Juneteenth” at [www.juneteenth.com]

“Juneteenth: The Joy of Freedom” at www.ushistoryscene.com

“Juneteenth” at the Texas State Library and Archives Comission

Cultural resources on Juneteenth through the African American Lectionary

Many additional resources are available through the [National Juneteenth Observance Foundation]

Non-fiction

Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore  by Francis Edward Abernethy

Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 by Mitch Kachun

Women, Culture, and Community: Religion and Reform in Galveston, 1880-1920 by Elizabeth Hayes Turner

The Abolitionist Movement: Ending Slavery by Tim McNeese

The Abolitionist Movement: Cornerstones of Freedom by Elaine Landau

Days of Jubilee: The End of Slavery in the United States by Patricia and Fredrick McKissack

Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment by Michael Vorenberg

Fiction
Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

Children’s books

Juneteenth: A Day to Celebrate Freedom from Slavery by Angela Leeper

Freedom’s Gifts: A Juneteenth Story by Valerie Wesley

Juneteenth Jamboree by Carole Boston Weatherford 

Juneteenth: Jubilee for Freedom by June Preszler

Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper

Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom by Charles Taylor

Juneteenth by Micheaux and Drew Nelson

[Lists compiled by Project HBW staff Mona Ahmed and Matthew Broussard.]