Happy Juneteenth!
Growing Home Collective is doing Juneteenth a little differently this year. Instead of our large public celebration, we are taking a break and hosting an afternoon cookout potluck with just members from the Collective and their families at GRuB on 6/19. For more information about Juneteenth, email growinghome@goodgrub.org
For folks living as Black in America, Juneteenth is an important date to commemorate Black perseverance and strategic upliftment of freedom and self-determination. On January 1st, 1863, Black people gathered in homes and churches for the first ‘Watch Night’ services, in anticipation of the announcement of their freedom by federal proclamation. At midnight, their emancipation was announced. Union soldiers traveled far and wide for months to announce the news and read the proclamation in plantations and towns and many of the soldiers were Black people.
Yet in many Confederates areas, whites were holding out against the Union and slaveowners refused to honor the proclamation, especially in Texas where over 250,000 stayed enslaved. Many Slaveowners moved enslaved people deeper into the south or southwest to avoid losing them, seeing them as property that sustained the economic and personal power benefits of chattel slavery. Even so, news of freedom was known in Confederate states since it was first announced in 1863. You can imagine how brilliantly, joyful enslaved Blacks in Texas felt when brigades of Union soldiers showed up in Galveston Texas, sent by the federal government to enforce their freedom. Many of those soldiers were Black men. Black people named this day Juneteenth, honoring it officially on the 19th of June, 1865.
What tremendous momentum had already been growing, as Black people, now formerly enslaved, looked for relatives who had been separated. Juneteenth celebrations of joy took place all over, beginning in Texas, and spreading throughout the south. These jubilees of delicious food, festivity, community and celebration included parades and with floats decorated in flowers. These were literal family reunions that are now tradition in many families today. For African Americans, the goal of creating safe communities and land sovereignty upon which to exercise freedom was paramount. Slaveowners were required to pay their former slaves and sharecropping developed as a way for Whites to continue making a profit off of Black labor. Hostilities and danger were still present for Black people. It was slow change in the beginning, and Black people transformed systems, unifying, creating their own homes and farms, towns and church centers and running for government office during the period known as Reconstruction. Juneteenth celebrations continued annually. As you think about Juneteenth and the story of the United States, remember that Juneteenth is American history!
Read more about Juneteenth and emancipation here.
