Honoring Juneteenth

This Saturday, June 19, 2021, the CHBA calls on our community to honor the historical significance of Juneteenth and continue to stand in solidarity with the Black community.

What is Juneteenth?

The word itself is a combination of June and nineteenth, and refers to the end days of chattel slavery in the United States when, on June 19, 1865, enslaved Black people were informed of their freedom in Galveston, Texas following the end of the Civil War. Juneteenth took place more than two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on January 1, 1863 and declared that all slaves in the Confederate states were to be freed. However, enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas did not occur until the advancement of Union troops and the surrender of Confederacy forces in 1865.

Although Juneteenth generally celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, slavery was still legal until December of 1865, when ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery.

In 1980, Texas became the first state to designate Juneteenth as a holiday. Since then, 46 other states and Washington, D.C., have moved to officially recognize the day, which is also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day.

On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed a bill establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. “This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take,” President Biden said.