JUNETEENTH is Saturday. Why Virginia Celebrating a Texas Holiday?

By STEVE SPACEK June 17, 2020

Washington DC area resident and Texas Native

Virginia, the northernmost 'Old South' State and a cradle of the 1861-65 Confederate States, has somehow, for at least a few recent years, made a note to itself to "sorta notice" Juneteenth, the oldest known commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, by typically issuing just an annual proclamation, as did many of its neighbor Southern regimes.

But the celebration had roots over 1, 200 miles away, in Galveston, then the second largest city in Texas, the westernmost part of that "Old South, " an embracer of a Confederate way of life that Virginia helped developed, put together.

On June 16, 2020 Governor Ralph Northam announced that Juneteenth would become a permanent paid state holiday. Virginia’s public employees would be given a day off on the 19th day of each June, forevermore. But on June 19, 1980, it was Texas!--the state won from the hard fighting efforts of Virginia-born Sam Houston and his Texian Army--that became the first in America and the South with the legislative courage to make Juneteenth an official holiday for governance, a day all the public could enjoy!

The partying and recognition of slavery's final days started almost immediately in Texas, 154 years before Governor Northam's action. 2,500 Union troops arrived at Galveston [With approximately 7,000 residents Galveston was Texas’ second largest city in 1865. Only San Antonio’s was larger, with its 8,200 population]. U.S. General Gordon Granger read out General Orders Number Three (3) to those gathered around: “The People of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive [Abraham Lincoln] of the United States, all slaves are free!” Henceforth, more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the Lone Star State were free, excitedly calling the day "Juneteenth."

I am glad Virginia and the other 11 "Old South" States are finally recognizing that celebratory feeling of "we wont forget what slavery did to us!," kind of happiness Texans 154 years ago wanted to outwardly share with other once-Confederate governments. Those officials from Richmond to Tallahassee to Nashville to Baton Rouge who for years did not want to listen nor celebrate emotions coming from them 'loud and proud FREE Texans"...until now.