Viele, Egbert L, and Charles Haskins. H. H. Lloyd & Co's. campaign military charts showing the principal strategic places of interest. New York H. H. Lloyd & Co, 1861. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/99447061/
The life of Hecky Powell, barbecue master and civic leader, will be honored at this year's Evanston Juneteenth Parade.
Hecky created his Juneteenth Strawberry Soda in honor of his great grandfather Forrest E. White, who was born into slavery. Read more about the food traditions that inspired this soda, and about Juneteenth celebrations, here.
Search each of the Oral History resources below for "Juneteenth" to find firsthand recollections of Juneteenth celebrations and histories.
The African-American Studies research guide includes a number of additional oral history websites that may also be of interest in its Audio/Visual section.
Juneteenth dates back to June 19, 1865, when the news of the Emancipation Proclamation - which had been signed over two years earlier - reached Texas via military order proclaiming the freedom of all enslaved people. The name of the 155-year-old holiday comes from a combination of the words "June" and "Nineteenth," commemorating that date in 1865 on which 250,000 people in Texas gained their freedom. The first Juneteenth celebration was held the following year and is celebrated to this day across the United States, the oldest nationally celebrated holiday commemorating the end of slavery, according to Juneteenth.com.
As Henry Louis Gates writes, “In one of the most inspiring grassroots efforts of the post-Civil War period, they transformed June 19 from a day of unheeded military orders into their own annual rite, ‘Juneteenth,’ beginning one year later in 1866.” JSTOR Daily, "The Story of Juneteenth."
"It became “an occasion for gathering lost family members, measuring progress against freedom and inculcating rising generations with the values of self-improvement and racial uplift. This was accomplished through readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, religious sermons and spirituals, the preservation of slave food delicacies (always at the center: the almighty barbecue pit), as well as the incorporation of new games and traditions, from baseball to rodeos and, later, stock car races and overhead flights.” PBS, "What is Juneteenth?"
The celebration in Galveston culminates each year with a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Read the full text of the proclamation and see the original via the U.S. National Archives. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation
Read more about the history and continuing importance of Juneteenth:
The resources in this section are available in print or electronically through the Northwestern University Libraries.
Electronic resources can be accessed by any Northwestern user by logging in with a NetID and password. For resources available in print, please see information on book scanning and pickup services.
"Free at Last": A Study of Afro-American Emancipation Day Celebrations by
Wiggins' dissertation is a "study of the emergence and development of Afro-American Emancipation celebrations."
African-American Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations by
The history, customs, and symbols associated with both traditional and contemporary religious and secular events observed by Americans of African descent.
Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 by
With the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, many African Americans began calling for "a day of publick thanksgiving" to commemorate this important step toward freedom. During the ensuing century, black leaders built on this foundation and constructed a distinctive and vibrant tradition through their celebrations of the end of slavery in New York State, the British West Indies, and eventually the United States as a whole. In this revealing study, Mitch Kachun explores the multiple functions and contested meanings surrounding African American emancipation celebrations from the abolition of the slave trade to the fiftieth anniversary of U.S. emancipation. Excluded from July Fourth and other American nationalist rituals for most of this period, black activists used these festivals of freedom to encourage community building and race uplift. Kachun demonstrates that, even as these annual rituals helped define African Americans as a people by fostering a sense of shared history, heritage, and identity, they were also sites of ambiguity and conflict. Freedom celebrations served as occasions for debate over black representations in the public sphere, struggles for group leadership, and contests over collective memory and its meaning. Based on extensive research in African American newspapers and oration texts, this book retraces a vital if often overlooked tradition in African American political culture and addresses important issues about black participation in the public sphere. By illuminating the origins of black Americans' public commemorations, it also helps explain why there have been increasing calls in recent years to make the "Juneteenth" observance of emancipation an American--not just an African American--day of commemoration.
Jubilation! African American Celebrations in the Southeast
An examination of the celebratory events that shape life in the African American community. Contents include "African American celebrations : an historical and cultural overview (1865-1969)" and "From Galveston to Washington : charting Juneteenth's Freedom Trail."
Juneteenth: A Novel by
From Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man--the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular--the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech--at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.
Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Freedom by
Juneteenth Texas explores African-American folkways and traditions from both African-American and white perspectives. Included are descriptions and classifications of different aspects of African-American folk culture in Texas; explorations of songs and stories and specific performers such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Manse Lipscomb, and Bongo Joe; and a section giving resources for the further study of African Americans in Texas.
Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance: Other Sides of Civil War Texas by
By framing their stories in the analytical context of the "long Civil War," Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance reveals how friends and neighbors became enemies and how the resulting violence, often at the hands of secessionists, crossed racial and ethnic lines. Concluding with an account of the origins of Juneteenth, Lone Star Unionism, Dissent, and Resistance challenges the collective historical memory of Civil War Texas and its place in both the Confederacy and the United States.
O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations by
This carefully produced book traces the evolution and historical context of emancipation celebrations across the United States as well as their role in transmitting culture and unifying Black Americans.
Remixing the Civil War: Meditations on the Sesquicentennial by
Essays from specialists in art, literature, and history examine how contemporary culture represents and interprets the Civil War. They look at the works of more than thirty artists and writers as well as multiple movements--political and social--to reveal the many and provocative ways in which Americans engage the Civil War today. The book includes a chapter on the proliferation of "Juneteenth" observances. Remixing the Civil War pays special attention to the works of African Americans and white southerners, for whom the Civil War was a revolutionary and defining moment.
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