Juneteenth 2021: How To Celebrate In Boulder County

BOULDER COUNTY — Juneteenth, June 19, will be celebrated as an official federal holiday for the first time in 2021. President Joe Biden signed a bill Thursday afternoon that makes Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday, and the first new one added to the national calendar since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 1983.

Juneteenth, held annually on June 19, celebrates the end of slavery in the United States and the date in 1865 when many slaves in Texas finally found out they were free. Slavery in America dated back 246 years to 1619.

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, according to Juneteenth.com. It is “a day, a week, and in some areas a month marked with celebrations, guest speakers, picnics and family gatherings.” In recent years, Juneteenth “commemorates African-American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement.”

The Executive Committee for African American Cultural Events and the NAACP Boulder County Branch have planned the county's inaugural Juneteenth Celebration, which will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The event, which will be held virtually, will feature Opal Lee, the "Grandmother of Juneteenth," who campaigned to get Juneteenth named a national holiday.

You can register for Boulder County's Juneteenth event here.

Boulder County commissioners worked with community partners and local municipalities to pass a Juneteenth Proclamation, which can be read here.

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Juneteenth is held on June 19 because that was the date in 1865 when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that the Civil War had ended and all slaves were free. Many of the slaves in Texas had not known of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had actually given them freedom more than two years earlier.

Granger read “General Order No. 3,” which stated, “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,” according to the city of Galveston, which has an historical marker for its connection to the holiday.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard University professor and African American historian, wrote in The Root magazine that Juneteenth is “an occasion for gathering lost family members, measuring progress against freedom and inculcating rising generations with the values of self-importance and racial uplift.”

Texas, in 1980, was the first state to recognize Juneteenth. Almost all others followed in the 40+ years since.

Hawaii, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states that did not already recognize Juneteenth, the Press-Herald newspaper reported, citing the Congressional Research Service, when Maine became among the most recent states to make it a paid state holiday this year.

Also On Patch: What Is Juneteenth? 5 Things To Know About The Holiday That Marks The End Of Slavery

The movement to make it a national holiday dates back to before the Biden administration. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution in 2018 designating June 19 as "Juneteenth Independence Day," but it did not reach the House of Representatives that year.

Some major American brands — Twitter, Nike and the National Football League, included — have made Juneteenth a paid company holiday.