California Black Media<\/strong> spoke with Ronald Preston Clark, a writer and educator in San Diego. He shared his perspective on the holiday and how, even though he grew up in a family connected to Black culture, he did not really appreciate the full significance of the Juneteenth until he was a student at Hampton University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t start to look into celebrating it until being surrounded by the excellence at Hampton. As I\u2019ve gotten older, and further into my teaching career, I have been more intentional with my celebration and understanding of Juneteenth. I am now sure to educate others on its significance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clark is not alone in his experience. For many Americans \u2013 including some Black Americans \u2014 Juneteenth was not celebrated in their families or taught in schools. It wasn\u2019t until activists and historians led grassroots movements for decades that the holiday became more widely recognized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Clark says he is happy to celebrate Juneteenth with his family and to see the holiday gain national recognition, he doesn\u2019t want it to turn into a commercialized event like other cultural holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe should always remember that the reason for the holiday is that our ancestors were set free \u2013 two years after they should have already been free. And then the years that followed were still filled with violence, hatred and bigotry towards us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
History of Juneteenth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Juneteenth marks the anniversary of June 19th, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were notified by Union soldiers that they were free under the Emancipation Proclamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two and a half years earlier, on December 31st, 1862, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes across the country to celebrate what was known as \u201cFreedom\u2019s Eve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were anticipating news that President Abraham Lincoln\u2019s proclamation that ended slavery in Confederate States had become official on January 1,1863.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, it could not be implemented in some places in the Deep South still under Confederate control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, in Texas, the westernmost Confederate state, enslaved people would not be free until approximately 2,000 Union troops led by Major Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Bay on June 19, 186B and announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free by executive decree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a proclamation commemorating Juneteenth in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis Juneteenth, I urge all Californians to reflect on the ongoing cause of freedom for Black Americans remembering that, though General Granger\u2019s announcement in 1865 called for \u201cabsolute equality,\u201d that vision was, and remains, far from complete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ethnic Media Services By\u00a0Edward Henderson\u00a0| California Black Media Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday in 2021 when<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,211],"tags":[66,103],"class_list":["post-5190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-black-history","category-juneteenth","tag-african-american","tag-juneteenth"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5192,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions\/5192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}