With Black Lives Matter protests happening around the nation and the world following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, among too many others killed by police officers, and a general feeling of civil unrest that we’re in a time of great and needed change in our country, it’s more important than ever that Juneteenth gets its due.
The day, which combines the phrases “June” and “19th,” has long been called to become a federal holiday, as it marks the true ending of slavery in the United States. While President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect Jan. 1, 1863, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865, that General Gordon Granger and his Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and any enslaved people were freed by executive order.
Celebrations over the years have included people marking African American liberation with songs, dance, games and similar readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, among other rituals. Here is how celebs are publicly celebrating Juneteenth in 2020.
