Juneteenth

Events

On June 19th, 1865 the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed in Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were now free. This date was two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Due to the small number of Union troops posted in Texas at the time, the Emancipation Proclamation had no impact on Texas when it was signed. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the news finally reached the slaves of Texas. General Granger gathered a crowd in front of the Osterman Building at 22nd and Strand and proclaimed the emancipation to Texans:

General Order Number 3

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”

Many attempts have been made to explain the two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news, but no one really know for sure why it took so long. For whatever the reason, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

The reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. While many lingered to learn of this new employer to employee relationship, many left before these offers were completely off the lips of their former masters. Even with nowhere to go, many felt that leaving the plantation would be their first grasp of freedom. North was a logical destination and for many it represented true freedom, while the desire to reach family members in neighboring states drove some into Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Recounting the memories of that great day in June of 1865 and its celebrations served as a release from the growing pressures encountered in their new territory.

The celebration of June 19th was coined “Juneteenth” and grew with more participation from descendants. The Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassuring each other, for praying and for gathering remaining family members. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date.

A range of activities were provided to entertain the masses, many of which continue in tradition today. Rodeos, fishing, barbecuing and baseball are just a few of the typical Juneteenth activities carried down through the generations. Juneteenth almost always focused on education and self improvement. Thus often elders are called upon to recount the events of the past. Prayer services were also a major part of these celebrations. Certain foods became popular and subsequently synonymous with Juneteenth celebrations such as strawberry soda-pop and barbecuing, allowing Juneteenth participants the opportunity to share in the spirit and aromas that their ancestors would have experienced during their ceremonies. Hence, the barbecue pit is often established as the center of attention at Juneteenth celebrations.

Food was abundant because everyone prepared a special dish. Meats such as lamb, pork and beef which not available everyday were brought on this special occasion. Dress was also an important element in early Juneteenth customs particularly by the direct descendants who can make the connection to this traditions roots. During slavery there were laws on the books in many areas that prohibited or limited the dressing of slaves. During the initial days of the emancipation celebrations, there are accounts of slaves tossing their ragged garments into the creeks and rivers to adorn clothing taken from the plantations belonging to their former masters.

In the early years, little interest in the celebrations existed outside the southwestern, African American community. In some cases, there was outward resistance by barring the use of public property for the festivities. Most of the festivities found themselves out in rural areas around rivers and creeks that could provide for additional activities such as fishing, horseback riding and picnics.

Often the church grounds was the site for such activities. Eventually, as African Americans became land owners, land was donated and dedicated for these festivities. One of the earliest documented land purchases in the name of Juneteenth was organized by Rev. Jack Yates. This fund-raising effort yielded $1000 and the purchase of Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas. In Mexia, the local Juneteenth organization purchased Booker T. Washington Park, which had become the Juneteenth celebration site in 1898.

There are accounts of Juneteenth activities being interrupted and halted by white landowners demanding that their laborers return to work. However, it seems most allowed their workers the day off and some even made donations of food and money.

For decades these annual celebrations flourished, growing continuously with each passing year. In Booker T. Washington Park, as many as 20,000 African Americans once flowed through during the course of a week, making the celebration one of the state’s largest.

Economic and cultural forces provided for a decline in Juneteenth activities and participants beginning in the early 1900’s. Classroom and textbook education in lieu of traditional home and family-taught practices stifled the interest of the youth due to less emphasis and detail on the activities of former slaves. Classroom text books proclaimed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1865 as the date signaling the ending of slavery, little or nothing is mentioned about the impact of General Granger,s arrival on June 19th.

The Depression forced many people of the farms and into the cities to find work. In these urban environments, employers were less eager to grant leaves to celebrate this date. Thus, unless June 19th fell on a weekend or holiday, there were very few participants available.

The Civil Rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s yielded both positive and negative results for the Juneteenth celebrations. While it pulled many of the African American youth away and into the struggle for racial equality, many linked these struggles to the historical struggles of their ancestors.

In 1968, Juneteenth received another strong resurgence through Poor Peoples March to Washington D.C.. Many of these attendees returned home and initiated Juneteenth celebrations in areas previously absent of such activity.

On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became an official state holiday through the efforts of Al Edwards, an African American state legislator. The successful passage of this bill marked Juneteenth as the first emancipation celebration granted official state recognition.

Throughout the 80’s and 90’s Juneteenth has continued to enjoy a growing and healthy interest from communities and organizations throughout the country. Institutions such as the Smithsonian, the Henry Ford Museum and others have begun sponsoring Juneteenth-centered activities. In recent years, a number of National Juneteenth Organizations have arisen to take their place along side older organizations. Juneteenth today celebrates African American freedom while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures.

As it takes on a more national and even global perspective, the events of 1865 in Texas are not forgotten, for all of the roots tie back to this fertile soil from which a national day of pride is growing.

Jim Crow Law

Events

Any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the U.S. South between the end (1877) of the formal Reconstruction period and the beginning of a strong civil-rights movement (1950s). “Jim Crow” was the name of a minstrel routine (actually “Jump Jim Crow”) performed beginning in 1828 by its author, Thomas Dartmouth (“Daddy”) Rice, and by many imitators, including Joseph Jefferson. The term came to be a derogatory epithet for blacks and a designation for their segregated life.

From the late 1870s, Southern state legislatures, no longer controlled by carpetbaggers and freedmen, passed laws requiring separation of whites from “persons of colour” in public transportation. Generally, anyone of ascertainable or strongly suspected black ancestry in any degree was for this purpose a “person of colour”; the pre-Civil War distinction favouring those whose ancestry was known to be mixed–particularly the half-French “free persons of colour” in Louisiana–was abandoned. The segregation principle was extended to schools, parks, cemeteries, theatres, and restaurants in an effort to prevent any contact between blacks and whites as equals. In 1954 the Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional and in subsequent decisions ruled similarly on other kinds of Jim Crow legislation. See also black code; racial segregation.

Black Code Laws

Events

In the United States, any of numerous laws enacted in the states of the former Confederacy after the American Civil War, in 1865 and 1866, designed to replace the social controls of slavery that had been removed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution and to assure continuance of white supremacy.
The black codes had their roots in the slave codes that had formerly been in effect. The general philosophy supporting the institution of chattel slavery in America was based on the concept that slaves were property, not persons, and that the law must protect not only the property but also the property owner from the danger of violence. Slave rebellions were not unknown, and the possibility of uprisings was a constant source of anxiety in colonies and then states with large slave populations. (In Virginia during 1780-1864, 1,418 slaves were convicted of crimes; 91 of these convictions were for insurrection and 346 for murder.) Slaves also ran away. In the British possessions in the New World, the settlers were free to promulgate any regulations they saw fit to govern their labour supply. As early as the 17th century, a set of rules was in effect in Virginia and elsewhere; but the codes were constantly being altered to adapt to new needs, and they varied from one colony, and later one state, to another.

All the slave codes, however, had certain provisions in common. In all of them the colour line was firmly drawn, and any amount of Negro blood established the race of a person, whether slave or free, as Negro. The status of the offspring followed that of the mother, so that the child of a free father and a slave mother was a slave. Slaves had few legal rights: in court their testimony was inadmissible in any litigation involving whites; they could make no contract, nor could they own property; even if attacked, they could not strike a white person. There were numerous restrictions to enforce social control: slaves could not be away from their owner’s premises without permission; they could not assemble unless a white person was present; they could not own firearms; they could not be taught to read or write, or transmit or possess “inflammatory” literature; they were not permitted to marry.

Obedience to the slave codes was exacted in a variety of ways. Such punishments as whipping, branding, and imprisonment were commonly used, but death (which meant destruction of property) was rarely called for except in such extreme cases as the rape or murder of a white person. White patrols kept the slaves under surveillance, especially at night. Slave codes were not always strictly enforced, but whenever any signs of unrest were detected the appropriate machinery of the state would be alerted and the laws more strictly enforced.

The black codes enacted immediately after the American Civil War, though varying from state to state, were all intended to secure a steady supply of cheap labour, and all continued to assume the inferiority of the freed slaves. There were vagrancy laws that declared a black to be vagrant if unemployed and without permanent residence; a person so defined could be arrested, fined, and bound out for a term of labour if unable to pay the fine. Apprentice laws provided for the “hiring out” of orphans and other young dependents to whites, who often turned out to be their former owners. Some states limited the type of property blacks could own, and in others blacks were excluded from certain businesses or from the skilled trades. Former slaves were forbidden to carry firearms or to testify in court, except in cases concerning other blacks. Legal marriage between blacks was provided for, but interracial marriage was prohibited.

It was Northern reaction to the black codes (as well as to the bloody antiblack riots in Memphis and New Orleans in 1866; see New Orleans Race Riot) that helped produce Radical Reconstruction (see Reconstruction) and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments. The Freedmen’s Bureau was created in 1865 to help the former slaves. Reconstruction did away with the black codes, but, after Reconstruction was over, many of their provisions were reenacted in the Jim Crow laws, which were not finally done away with until passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.