Today is the national Juneteenth holiday.
It marks the day in 1865 when Union troops landed at Galveston, Texas and the commanding officer of the District of Texas, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, issued what was called General Order No. 3.
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free,” the order read. “This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.”
History is rarely as neat as the order suggested, but it was still a big moment, one that Black residents of Galveston have marked from the very beginning.
There were festivities for what was then called “Emancipation Day” in June 1866, just a year after it happened.
These were not official celebrations; they were held by families, churches and neighborhoods.
The official events didn’t happen until in 1979, when Texas lawmakers voted to make Juneteenth an official state holiday.
A first-term lawmaker, Al Edwards of Houston, decided formalizing the holiday would be his top priority in office.
The range of initial reaction ran between opposition and apathy: some civil rights advocates even thought that the push for Juneteenth recognition was a way to stall the effort to create a holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
But Edwards worked and worked and worked, winning over lawmakers one at a time until the measure few thought would pass… passed.
There’s now a nine foot tall statue of Edwards in Galveston, known as The Legislator.
The national holiday came much later, thanks to the efforts of Opal Lee.
When she was barely 10 years old, a mob burned down her house because her family had moved into a white neighborhood.
And it happened on June 19, so she wanted the country to see the importance of the holiday and its meaning.
Years later, Lee started marking Juneteenth by walking 2.5 miles, a reference to the 2.5 years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Black Texans.
Her walks started getting attention from some high-profile supporters, helping to spur Congress to approve a national holiday in 2021.
And there’s a portrait of Opal Lee, now known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth, at the Texas State Capitol in Austin.
It’s one of the many spots where you might spend part of this holiday, reflecting not only on the history that put an end to slavery in the United States, but on the efforts to commemorate that moment.
Former State Rep. Al Edwards, Who Helped Make Juneteenth A State Holiday, Dies At 83 (Houston Public Media)
How 97-Year-Old Activist Opal Lee Became the “Grandmother of Juneteenth” (Biography)
