{"id":2549,"date":"2021-06-16T08:36:45","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T14:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmblc.org\/?p=2549"},"modified":"2022-06-16T11:36:36","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T17:36:36","slug":"juneteenth-is-a-celebration-of-freedom-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmblc.org\/old-site\/juneteenth-is-a-celebration-of-freedom-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Juneteenth is a Celebration of Freedom for All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NMBLC breaks down what Juneteenth is about and lists Juneteenth 2021 celebrations happening this weekend.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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What is Juneteenth?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. The first death blow to slavery was dealt with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. In actuality, the practice of slavery did not end until over two years later. On June 19, 1865, the last of the enslaved people in Galveston Texas were informed by Union troops that slavery had been abolished. \u201cJuneteenth\u201d is a conjugation of \u201cJune\u201d and \u201cnineteenth.\u201d The first official Juneteenth celebration took place the following year in Texas. As Black people migrated from Texas to other parts of the country, the Juneteenth tradition spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, 47 states, including New Mexico, recognize or observe Juneteenth<\/a>. The push to make it a national holiday now has a chance for success. On Tuesday, June 15, 2021, a bill to make Juneteenth a US holiday passed unanimously in the Senate<\/a>. UPDATED: On Wednesday, June 16, 2021, the House passed the bill 415-14<\/a>. On Thursday, June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the bill into law<\/a> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rising Awareness of Juneteenth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know about Juneteenth until I was nineteen years old.\u201d <\/p>\u2014Laurence Fishburne, actor, Black-ish<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not uncommon, even among Black people, to not really know what Juneteenth is. I didn\u2019t hear about it until well into adulthood. I took even longer to know what it was about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew about Juneteenth but never fully understood it.\u201d <\/p>\u2014Marsai Martin, actor, Black-ish<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was this lack of national awareness that inspired the famous \u201cJuneteenth\u201d episode of the sitcom Black-ish<\/em>. In the episode, Anthony Anderson\u2019s character grapples with the fact that he and his family don’t celebrate the holiday and possibly don\u2019t want to, since it\u2019s a reminder of the enslavement of African and African American people in the U.S. This real day conflict is interspersed with musical numbers explaining slavery, emancipation, and the oppression that followed. Even now it feels incredible that the episode aired on mainstream television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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