Juneteenth: Celebration and Reflection

On June 20 UC Davis observes Juneteenth, a holiday that encourages thoughtful reflection as well as celebration.

President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday last year – a long overdue but welcome acknowledgement of a day observed by African Americans and many others for more than 150 years.

On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers led by Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and informed enslaved Black people that the Civil War had ended and that they were free. Although President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, there had been too few Union troops in Texas to enforce it.

Annual celebrations of Juneteenth – a combination of “June” and “Nineteenth” – by newly free people began in June 1866, six months after the ratification of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.

Juneteenth long ago became a celebration of African Americans’ achievements, and of family and community, as well as an annual marker of slavery’s abolition. The holiday offers a chance to reflect on one of the most painful and shameful chapters in our nation’s history, the hard-won progress made since, and the many gains still to be achieved.

Juneteenth holds special meaning at Martin Luther King Jr. Hall, built on the foundational principles of justice and equality, and at UC Davis, which holds diversity, equity and inclusion as core values. As Chancellor Gary S. May recently observed in the Davis Enterprise:

“Juneteenth reminds us that we have the power to persevere. We can do that by coming together as a community, by taking the opportunity to learn about and learn from one another. We can make progress by embracing the full spectrum of diversity and working to find common ground among our vast experiences and heritages.”