Juneteenth & Emancipation

Congressional Research Service

Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Original version of General Order No. 3 from General Gordon Granger. Picture of General Granger.54th Anniversary of Emancipation on Juneteenth.

James Weldon Johnson, born in Florida in 1871, was a national organizer for the NAACP and an author of poetry and nonfiction. Perhaps best known for the song "Lift Every Voice and SIng," he also wrote several poetry collections and novels, often exploring racial identity and the African American folk tradition.

Provides contextual background to the development of the Final Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. Meanwhile, no one appreciated better than Lincoln the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation had a quite limited effect in freeing the slaves directly. It should be remembered, however, that in the Proclamation he called emancipation "an act of justice," and in later weeks and months he did everything he could to confirm his view that it was An Act of Justice.Thus, he proposed that the Republican Party include in its 1864 platform a plank calling for the abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment. When he was "notified" of his renomination, as was the custom in those days, he singled out that plank in the platform calling for constitutional emancipation and pronounced it "a fitting and necessary conclusion to the final success of the Union cause." Early in 1865, when Congress sent the amendment to Lincoln for his signature, he is reported to have said, "This amendment is a King's cure for all the evils. It winds the whole thing up." Despite the fact that the Proclamation did not emancipate the slaves and surely did not do what the Thirteenth Amendment did in winding things up, it is the Proclamation and not the Thirteenth Amendment that has been remembered and celebrated over the past 130 years.

Texas: Juneteenth Celebration (Local Legacies: Celebrating Community Roots - Library of Congress)

The Mexican government was opposed to slavery, but even so, there were 5000 slaves in Texas by the time of the Texas Revolution in 1836. By the time of annexation a decade later, there were 30,000; by 1860, the census found 182,566 slaves -- over 30% of the total population of the state. Most slaves came to Texas with their owners, and the vast majority lived on large cotton plantations in East Texas. When the Civil War came, Texas was not invaded, and the slaves continued to live and work as they had before. They realized that a Union victory would mean their liberation, and they listened for news as best they could and passed the word of any developments. It was not until June 19, 1865, that Union forces occupied Texas and officially freed the slaves. The day would be celebrated in the years to come as "Juneteenth."