WEBVTT - How Did Juneteenth Get Started? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:11.680 Lauren vocal Bam here. Every year on June nineteen, millions 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.159 of people across America come together to celebrate Juneteenth with 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:19.480 parties and parades, prayer, breakfasts, and golf tournaments, cookouts and music. 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.480 The holiday is now officially recognized in forty seven states 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.279 plus Washington, d C. Though it hasn't been made a 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.240 national holiday yet despite having been around for more than 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.960 a hundred and fifty years. We spoke with Paula Austin, 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.600 a professor of African American studies and history at Boston University. 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.040 She said, you'd be surprised. There are many students who 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:41.880 get to my class and they sort of never learned 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.120 about the history of enslavement. They've never learned about the 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.200 Civil rights movement. I think they've had students who, because 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.160 of where they're from or their families, know about Juneteenth 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.720 and have actually participated in the celebrations. But most students 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.360 come and they don't know. But let's go back to 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.400 the beginning. On June eighteen sixty five, more than two 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.040 months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.080 S grant at apematics, which all but ended the Civil War. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:10.920 A U. S. Army officer by the name of Major 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:16.280 General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas with two momentous announcements, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.560 the end of the Civil War and with it, the 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.640 end of slavery. Nobody is quite sure why it took 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.160 so long for the news of emancipation to reach Texas. 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.679 Several stories have been told throughout the years, though none 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.800 has ever been confirmed, including one of an earlier messenger 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:34.800 who was killed on his way to Texas to tell 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.679 the news of freedom. Others believe that some enslavers knew 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.880 the truth but simply continued going about business as usual. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:44.960 The most likely is simply that there were not enough 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.800 troops to enforce the emancipation Proclamation, whether enslaved people knew 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.880 about it or not, so things remained status quo, that 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:57.800 is until Major General Granger showed up. After Granger's announcement, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.560 some of the two hundred and fifty thousand people in 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.360 Texas immediately left for the promise of true freedom in 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.440 the North, while others traveled to rejoin family members. One 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.400 formerly enslaved person, Molly Harrold, said in the slave narratives 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.080 of Texas. We all walked down the road, singing and 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.320 shouting to beat the band. Others stayed defined, paying work 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.079 in the fields and elsewhere. That day marks what is 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.480 now often called Black Independence Day or the Black fourth 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:30.160 of July. It's the American celebration of freedom from slavery. 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.959 Juneteenth was first observed in Texas in eighteen sixty six. 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.040 It wasn't officially recognized as a holiday in any state 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:40.799 until Texas did so in nineteen seventy nine. Since then, 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.880 only North Dakota, South Dakota, and Hawaii have yet to 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.120 declare it a holiday. In recent years, both the U. S. 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.800 House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate have formally 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:56.120 recognized June nineteenth as Juneteenth Independence Day. Various movements to 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.280 grant the day status as a national holiday are ongoing. 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.960 U S. Senator Corey Booker said in twenty eighteen, on 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.720 this day, we must confront the ugly parts of our 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.720 history and honor the slaves who suffered and died under 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.919 a repressive regime. We must also pay tribute to all 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:15.440 those who had the strength and conviction to fight to 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:20.119 end slavery and keep our union together. Juneteenth Independence Day 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.239 is also an important moment to recognize how far we've 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.880 come and take note of how far we have yet 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.320 to go. Certainly, during the original Juneteenth, there was still 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:32.560 a lot of work to be done. It came just 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.160 months after the Civil War ended and two years after 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:39.000 the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. The 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.280 Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S Constitution, which abolished slavery, 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.640 had been passed by Congress and was well on its 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.320 way to being ratified by the States, but the fourteenth 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.960 and fifteenth guaranteeing equal protection and the right to vote 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.800 to all citizens regardless of skin color, were still a 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.200 couple of years off, and not all enslaved people in 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.400 Texas were immediately freed. Some held by defiant plantation owners 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:05.720 were not emancipated until much later. Some formerly enslaved people 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.040 who tried to leave, historical reports show, were tracked down 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.920 and killed. Many more stepped into a future of poverty, fear, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:18.640 and uncertainty. Austin suggests that many Americans ignorance about Juneteenth 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:22.359 stems from a disinclination to completely face the country's past 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.000 with slavery, and it's far reaching and continuing aftermath. Still 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.960 Juneteenth has persevered. It's observance has waned through the years 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.000 under the oppression of Jim Crow laws and attitudes, but 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.440 the festivities that began in Texas eventually spread to more states, 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.000 and the idea of commemorating black independence picked up through 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.760 the civil rights era of the nineteen sixties, and the 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:48.479 parties continue today. Austin said, the kinds of celebrations that 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.359 I've seen and been a part of have been incredibly wonderful. 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.719 They're about Black culture, They're about Black history. They're about 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:59.360 the resistance and the resilience of the black community. Several 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.960 years before Granger made his June nineteenth declaration in Galveston, 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.040 famed American orator Frederick Douglas, himself formerly enslaved, spoke to 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.440 an abolitionist group in New York about the fourth of 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.560 July as being a day of independence and how it 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.640 didn't fit for all Americans. He said, what to the 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.560 American slave is your fourth of July? I answer? A 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.120 day that reveals to him, more than all other days 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.760 in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:31.640 he is the constant victim. Openly a former school teacher 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.919 and counselor in Fort Worth, Texas, has been instrumental in 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:39.000 trying to get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday. This year, 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.520 she'll walk from the Fort Worth Convention Center to the 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.080 Will Rogers Colisseum, leading a caravan and urging people to 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.040 sign a petition for the cause. Lee, who is ninety 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.240 three years old, has been part of the Fort Worth 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.159 Juneteenth festivities for more than forty years. She said last year, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.360 it's as important as the Fourth of July. In fact, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.960 I dream someday they celebrate from the nineteenth to the 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.120 fourth like they do. Marty Gras, I haven't dreamed as 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.760 large as the Rose Bowl or the Macy's Parade, but 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.599 I'm getting there. To those who observe June tenth, despite 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.960 its shaky beginnings and it's still unfulfilled, pledge, the day 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.680 still holds a promise of freedom, independence, equality, ideas and 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:26.200 ideals always worth celebrating. Today's episode was written by John 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:28.800 Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.400 and lots of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:33.760 Brain Stuff is production of I Heeart Radio. For more 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.200 podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio, app, Apple podcasts, 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.000 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.