Juneteeth 2023
Salvo Soccer Club joins organizations across the country in recognizing Juneteenth as an important day in our country’s history. Juneteenth, 2023 is the third annual federal holiday, has gone by several names: Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Liberation Day. A day that freedom had to be enforced with force. While the Emancipation Proclamation deemed enslaved people legally free in Confederate states, it was the Thirteenth Amendment that ended slavery in the U.S. as national policy.
News of the Emancipation Proclamation that went into effect on January 1, 1863, had not reached certain parts of the country still under Confederate control. Major General Granger read aloud General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865: “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 personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
To African Americans in Texas, this day became known as Juneteenth, which until recent years, many people in this country were unaware of. This day has steadily grown in awareness and become a part of the fabric of the country’s consciousness. Juneteenth is an opportunity to recognize those who survived slavery and whose freedom was delayed. It’s also an opportunity to celebrate how far we’ve come as a country as well as acknowledge how far we still must go appreciating the milestones along the way.
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For more information about Juneteenth and to learn more about African American history, click on the links below:
Here are documentaries and other videos to watch to educate yourself about Juneteenth and the Black experience in America.