Celebrating Juneteenth

Today, June 19, 2022, marks the first time our nation will celebrate this new federal holiday. U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on Thursday, June 17, 2021, making it the first federal holiday approved since 1983 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was created.

A Manual to Juneteenth

African Americans have celebrated Juneteenth since the late 1800s. The holiday has resonated in new ways across the United States in recent years.

Nicole Taylor, the author of the cookbook “Watermelon and Red Birds,” curated a choice of recipes to help you explore the flavors of Juneteenth.

Juneteenth, an annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War, has been celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s.

President Biden signed legislation last year that made Juneteenth, which falls on June 19, a federal holiday after interest in the day was renewed during the summer of 2020 and the nationwide protests that followed the police killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Juneteenth celebrations across the United States have seen a noticeable increase in the Juneteenth celebrations over the past few years. With this year’s holiday coming just over a month after a white gunman killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent U.S. history, Juneteenth celebrations may resonate in new ways.

How did Juneteenth start?

How is Juneteenth celebrated?

Early celebrations involved prayer and family gatherings and later included annual pilgrimages to Galveston by formerly enslaved people and their families, according to Juneteenth.com.

In 1872, a group of African American ministers and businessmen in Houston purchased 10 acres of land and created Emancipation Park, which was intended to hold the city’s annual Juneteenth celebration.

Today, while some celebrations occur among families in backyards where food is an integral element, some cities, like Atlanta and Washington, hold more significant events, including parades and festivals with residents, local businesses, and more.

While celebrations in 2020 and 2021 were primarily subdued by the coronavirus pandemic, some cities this year are pressing forward with plans.

Galveston has remained a busy site for Juneteenth events over the years, said Douglas Matthews, who has helped coordinate them for over two decades.

After dedicating a 5,000-square-foot mural last year, in 2022, Galveston will celebrate the holiday with a banquet, poetry festival, parade, and picnic. Organizers in Atlanta will hold a march and music festival at Centennial Olympic Park, and similar events are scheduled in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The route to a national celebration

In 1980, Texas became the first state to appoint Juneteenth as a holiday. All 50 states and the District of Columbia now recognize the day in some form.

In the wake of the nationwide protests of police brutality in 2020, the push for federal recognition of Juneteenth gained new momentum, and Congress quickly pushed through legislation in the summer of 2021.

In the House, the measure passed by a vote of 415 to 14, with all the opposition coming from Republicans, some of whom argued that calling the new holiday Juneteenth Independence Day, echoing July 4, would create confusion and force Americans to choose a celebration of freedom based on their race.

On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the bill into law, making Juneteenth the 11th holiday recognized by the federal government. At a White House ceremony, Mr. Biden singled out Opal Lee, an activist who, at the age of 89, walked from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., and called her “a grandmother of the movement to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.”

The law went into effect once, and the first federal Juneteenth holiday was celebrated the next day. (The holiday was observed on June 18, as June 19 fell on a Saturday.)

Why has Juneteenth become so vital?

Following the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who died in the custody of the Minneapolis Police in May 2020, thousands of people around the United States poured onto the streets in protest. Mr. Floyd’s name and the names of Ms. Taylor, Mr. Arbery, David McAtee, and others became a rallying cry for change across the country, effectively re-energizing the Black Lives Matter movement.

That change came in waves. In Minneapolis, officials banned the use of chokeholds and strangleholds by the police and said officers must intervene and report any use of unauthorized force.

Democrats in Congress unveiled sweeping legislation targeting misconduct and racial discrimination by the police. The bill was the most expansive intervention into policing lawmakers have proposed recently.

Companies across the business spectrum voiced support for the Black Lives Matter movement and either suspended or fired employees who mocked Mr. Floyd’s death or made racist remarks.

In April 2021, Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, was found guilty of two counts of murder in the death of Mr. Floyd. But two years on, many of the city’s residents say that genuine change has been slow.

Mark Anthony Neal, an African-American studies scholar at Duke University, said there are some comparisons between the end of the Civil War to the unrest that swept the country, adding that the moment felt like a “rupture.”

“The stakes are a little different,” Mr. Neal said.

“I think Juneteenth feels a little different now,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for folks to catch their breath about this incredible pace of change and shifting that we’ve seen.”

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