Friday is the first official celebration of Juneteenth as both a state and federal holiday in New Jersey. Now that President Biden signed bills passed by Congress establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday, it commemorates the day in 1865 that Union troops told the remaining enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas they were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
Juneteenth has been celebrated in parts of the U.S. for roughly 100 years, but in the Northeast many say they never learned about the events surrounding this moment in our nation’s history or its significance.
“When we think about slavery, when we think about Juneteenth and the Emancipation Proclamation, there tends to be a sort of whitewashed version of history, which we are starting to uncover now,” said Montclair State University Assistant Professor of Justice Studies, Jason Williams. For example, those “freed” by President Lincoln’s signing of the proclamation did not actually become free until 900 days after the signing.
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