Texas, USA – 19th June is a very important day for many Americans as the entire country honors the true ending of slavery in the United States. From holy places across the state of Texas the avenues of New York City, June Nineteenth a.k.a Juneteenth is an important page of the diverse American history where everybody celebrates freedom. Back in the day, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which became effective on January 1, 1963, announcing that “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State… shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Two and a half years later, on June 19, 1865, soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to free any oppressed individuals by official request. “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 proclamation read.
This year, Juneteenth is more poignant than usual due to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a June 19th crusade rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma which is the site of one of the most noticeably awful demonstrations of supremacist viciousness the nation as ever observed and the global protests sparked by systemic racism and police killings of black individuals like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and many more. Texas was the primary state to perceive June 19th as an official state holiday in 1979 and since then, 47 states have declared today a national holiday albeit a countrywide national acknowledgment is yet to happen.
The White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked by journalists what Juneteenth meant to President Trump. She said: “The African American community is very near and dear to his heart.” She added, “He’s working on rectifying injustices … So it’s a meaningful day to him and it’s a day where he wants to share some of the progress that’s been made as we look forward and more that needs to be done.”
