Celebrate Juneteenth with the Arts

On January 1, 1863 (known as “Freedom’s Eve”) enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes across the country, awaiting word.

When the news finally arrived, it declared that President Abraham Lincoln had issued a proclamation: “that all persons held as slaves” in the rebel states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued during the American Civil War, applied only to Confederate-controlled states. True emancipation across the United States would not come until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865.

Responsibility for sharing the news fell to enslavers, but not all enslaved people were told. In many places under Confederate control, the message of freedom was deliberately delayed or outright denied.

Texas, the westernmost Confederate state, was the last to enforce the proclamation. On June 19, 1865, 2,000 Union troops under Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston Bay and announced freedom to a community of over 250,000 enslaved people. That day became known as Juneteenth.

Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.

May we all enjoy the ways performance, literary and visual arts celebrate freedom and commemorate humanity.

Grace Murray Stephenson’s 1900 photograph (shown at top) bears witness to the vibrancy of Juneteenth celebrations in Austin, Texas, where a band performs amid the echoes of newly claimed freedom.