By Rit Carter
Juneteenth, also known as the Day of Jubilee, is a national holiday commemorating when the enslaved in the state of Texas learned, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, they were now free.
This year, the holiday is observed on Monday, June 20, because Juneteenth June 19 lands on the weekend. In the nation’s capital, Juneteenth celebrations are being held at the Library of Congress, the National Archives and the National Museum of African Art.
Locally, in Bristol, Mayor Jeffrey Caggiano issued a statement about the holiday early Sunday morning, writing in part, “The moment was significant. Texas had been the last of the Confederate states in which enslavement continued, despite President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery in 1863 and despite the end of the Civil War on April 9, 1865. Texas was the most remote state in the Confederacy, and it took Union forces until June to reach Texas in sufficient numbers to announce and enforce the federal order that ended slavery there.”
Meanwhile, in New Britain, a Juneteenth Community Day was held Saturday, June 18, featuring performances by the New Britain High School drumline and jazz band, Jenee Shree, Belle & the Sons, Grace Poetic Souldier, Aaron St. Louis, Michael “The Chief” Peterson, Goddess and FriendZWorldMusic. Children’s activities include a scavenger hunt. Mayor Erin Stewart will attend the event Mayor Stewart also attended the New Britain Museum of American Art’s Juneteenth event the same day.
In Farmington, on June 25, the Hill-Stead Museum, 35 Mountain Rd., will open its exhibition featuring the art of regional black artists at a Juneteenth celebration from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at an outdoor event with food, music and family activities.
Beginning in early June, events commemorating Juneteenth were held throughout the state.
Juneteenth laid the foundation for the 13th, (abolished slavery in the United States), 14th (All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States), and 15th amendments (guaranteed African-American men the right to vote).
With the passage of the 15th amendment, Thomas Mundy Peterson of Perth Amboy, N.J., was the first black to vote in 1870.
Upon the Civil War ending in 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and roughly 1,800 troops traveled to Galveston, Texas, to announce that anyone held in slavery in the confederate states is now free with General Order No. 3.
The people are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
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