Juneteenth 2021 In Rhode Island: What To Know

PROVIDENCE, RI — For the first time, Americans across the country are celebrating a new national holiday. This week, President Joe Biden officially declared Juneteenth — commemorated on June 19 — a federal holiday.

Here in Rhode Island, Gov. Dan McKee said he supports making it a state holiday, saying Thursday that he would "sign that bill if it came to [him]" from the General Assembly.

"The recognition of Juneteenth is long overdue, and the Governor is glad to see movement on this at the federal level," A spokesperson for McKee said.

The United Way of Rhode Island is sponsoring a Juneteenth celebration at Roger Williams Park in Providence on Saturday. The celebration will kick off at noon and feature live performances, local vendors and more.

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.”

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.”