What is Juneteenth? How should a Christian celebrate Juneteenth?

Answer

Juneteenth is an American holiday that marks the end of slavery in Texas. It is celebrated on June 19 (Juneteenth is a shortened form of June nineteenth) or on the Monday following that date if Juneteenth falls on a weekend. Juneteenth is also known as Black Independence Day, Emancipation Day, and Jubilee Day.

The origins of Juneteenth date back to the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. The war officially ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, Virginia. However, prior to this, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which, on paper, freed all slaves in the Confederate States. Despite Lincoln’s proclamation and the war’s end, little changed for slaves in Texas because news traveled slowly during that time. Before the war, mail reached Texas by stagecoach or wagon. During the war, funding for the postal service was cut off, making mail delivery even more unreliable and sporadic.

Then, on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger and his Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and read General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This establishes complete equality of personal rights and property rights between former masters and slaves, transforming their previous relationship into one between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to stay peacefully in their current homes and work for wages. They are notified that they cannot gather at military posts and will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” This declaration marked the end of slavery in Texas. On December 6 of the same year, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, officially abolishing legalized slavery.

ry in all states.

In 1866, a year after Granger’s arrival in Texas, freedmen in Galveston celebrated “Jubilee Day” on June 19. From that point on, Juneteenth was observed in Texas with celebrations featuring music, barbecues, prayers, speeches, and church services. People began coming from other parts of the country to Texas to celebrate Juneteenth. In 1872, a group of ministers and businessmen purchased some land in Houston, named the spot Emancipation Park, and began using that land for annual Juneteenth observances. Juneteenth became a federal U.S. holiday in 2021.

Christians certainly can and should celebrate the end of legalized slavery. On both sides of the Atlantic, Christians were involved in abolitionist movements: William Wilberforce, John Newton, Charles Spurgeon, and John Wesley were all committed Christians who helped end the slave trade in England; John Woolman, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Charles Finney, and other American Christians were instrumental in abolishing slavery in the U.S. Christians then played a large role in ending the injustice of slavery, and Christians today should celebrate what they worked so hard to bring about.

In the Bible, freedom from slavery was celebrated in several ways. The Jewish people were to keep the Passover, which commemorated their exodus from Egyptian slavery. Also, there was the annual Feast of Tabernacles in which God’s people celebrated God’s provision in the wilderness following their deliverance from slavery. And every fifty years was the Year of Jubilee in which all debts were canceled, all slaves were freed, and all property was returned to the original owners. It is good and right to thank God for freedom, and that is part of what Juneteenth is.

On Juneteenth, we rejoice in that we’ve come a little closer to seeing the fulfillment of the words to the Christmas hymn “O Holy Night”:

“Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our

Brother,

And in His name all oppression shall cease.”