WEBVTT - 061524 The History of Juneteenth

0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Right now, It's time for the Way Black History Fact.

0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.000
<v Speaker 1>And Today's Way Black History Fact is sponsored by Major

0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.560
<v Speaker 1>Threads for Innovative, Fashionable sports whear checkmajorthreads dot com and

0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:11.080
<v Speaker 1>today I'm going to share with you from the National

0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:16.600
<v Speaker 1>Museum of African American History and Culture. On June nineteenth,

0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.799
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixty five, nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln

0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.560
<v Speaker 1>emancipated enslaved Africans in America, Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay,

0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.640
<v Speaker 1>Texas with news of freedom. More than two hundred and

0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.839
<v Speaker 1>fifty thousand African Americans embraced freedom by executive decree in

0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.440
<v Speaker 1>what became known as June teenth, or Freedom Day, with

0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:41.519
<v Speaker 1>the principles of self determination, citizenship, and democracy magnifying their

0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.360
<v Speaker 1>hopes and dreams. Those Texans held fast to the promise

0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:50.440
<v Speaker 1>of true liberty for all. I think that's beautiful. Hope

0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.280
<v Speaker 1>is beautiful. Hope is beautiful.

0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.800
<v Speaker 2>I know you, I know we're not there yet. That

0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.440
<v Speaker 2>hope is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to have, right.

0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:00.960
<v Speaker 2>And you got to imagine your whole life is a slave.

0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.800
<v Speaker 2>You hear this news, you know that's not nothing. This

0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:05.399
<v Speaker 2>is whole got to be a good day and instilled

0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.319
<v Speaker 2>in eighteen hundred and sixty five.

0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.480
<v Speaker 1>Well, we're looking at we are still in pursuit of yeah,

0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.160
<v Speaker 1>by the way, and we're looking back on it. But

0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.240
<v Speaker 1>in that moment, I just my heart swells for the

0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:17.920
<v Speaker 1>people that got this news. All right, let me hear

0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.839
<v Speaker 1>you up on Freedom Zeve, or the eve of January first,

0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.480
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixty three, the first watch Night services took place.

0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.280
<v Speaker 1>On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in

0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:30.640
<v Speaker 1>churches and private homes across the country, awaiting news that

0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.600
<v Speaker 1>the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect, that the stroke of

0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.800
<v Speaker 1>midnight prayers were answered, and as all enslaved people in

0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:41.280
<v Speaker 1>Confederate States were declared legally free, Union soldiers, many of

0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.520
<v Speaker 1>whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in

0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.480
<v Speaker 1>the South, reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, spreading

0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.480
<v Speaker 1>the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the

0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation of en slavery throughout the United States. Quote,

0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.480
<v Speaker 1>the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with

0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.680
<v Speaker 1>a proclamation from the ex Executive of the United States,

0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.280
<v Speaker 1>all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of

0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.720
<v Speaker 1>rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves,

0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.840
<v Speaker 1>and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between

0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.520
<v Speaker 1>employer and hired laborer. This is from Gordon Granger, a

0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:22.720
<v Speaker 1>Union general, on June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five. But not

0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.160
<v Speaker 1>everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though

0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.120
<v Speaker 1>the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in eighteen sixty three,

0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.240
<v Speaker 1>it cannot be implemented in places still under Confederate control.

0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.760
<v Speaker 1>As a result, in the western most Confederate state of Texas,

0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:37.840
<v Speaker 1>and slave people would not be free until much later.

0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.600
<v Speaker 1>Freedom finally came on June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five, when

0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.959
<v Speaker 1>some two thousand Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas.

0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.720
<v Speaker 1>The army announced that the more than two hundred and

0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.200
<v Speaker 1>fifty thousand enslaved black people in the state were free

0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.760
<v Speaker 1>by executive decree. This day came to be known as

0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.880
<v Speaker 1>June teenth by the newly freed people in Texas. The

0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.360
<v Speaker 1>post emancipation period, known as recon Instruction eighteen sixty five

0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.120
<v Speaker 1>to eighteen seventy seven, marked an era of great hope, uncertainty,

0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.440
<v Speaker 1>and struggle for the nation as a whole. Formerly enslaved

0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.920
<v Speaker 1>people immediately sought to reunify families, established schools, run for

0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.120
<v Speaker 1>political office, push radical legislation, and even sue slaveholders for compensation.

0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.480
<v Speaker 1>Given the two hundred plus years of enslavement, such changes

0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.560
<v Speaker 1>were nothing short of amazing. Not even a generation out

0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.880
<v Speaker 1>of slavery, African Americans were inspired and empowered to transform

0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.600
<v Speaker 1>their lives and their country. Juneteenth marks our country's second

0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.000
<v Speaker 1>independence Day. Although it is long celebrated in the African

0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:38.279
<v Speaker 1>American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans,

0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.360
<v Speaker 1>at least as of a couple of years ago. For

0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.480
<v Speaker 1>the nearly four million newly freed, newly freed, education was

0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:50.480
<v Speaker 1>a crucial first step to becoming self sufficient. Between eighteen

0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:52.920
<v Speaker 1>sixty one and nineteen hundred, more than ninety institutions of

0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.200
<v Speaker 1>higher education were founded for African Americans, and you can

0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.880
<v Speaker 1>find more at NMAAHC, DO SI dot edu