Editorial: The Juneteenth federal holiday raises awareness of an important moment in our nation’s history

Published 12:00 am Saturday, June 19, 2021

Today is Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, which has been a holiday for some who have commemorated the day in 1865 when the final enslaved Black people learned they had been freed.

Now, Juneteenth is a federal holiday, after President Joe Biden signed a bill designating it so.

According to The Associated Press, June 19, 1865, “was the day that Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — some 2 1/2 years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves in Southern states.”

“This day doesn’t just celebrate the past. It calls for action today,” Biden said before he established Juneteenth National Independence Day.

“Biden singled out voting rights as an area for action,” The Associated Press reported.

That is a political question that must be resolved by local officials, state legislatures, Congress and most likely the courts.

But wherever that debate goes, there is a value in the establishment of Juneteenth National Independence Day if it raises awareness of this chapter in our American history that for so long so many Americans weren’t aware of, even as many Black Americans celebrated it. The Dalton-Whitfield NAACP is presenting the third annual Juneteenth Community Celebration this week with several events including a parade in downtown Dalton today at 10 a.m. and a gala tonight with the theme “Perfecting Unity — Rising Together.”

“Peniel Joseph, an expert on race at the University of Texas at Austin, said the U.S. has never had a holiday or a national commemoration of the end of slavery,” The Associated Press reported.

“Most white Americans had not heard of Juneteenth before the summer of 2020 and the protests that stirred the nation’s conscience over race after (George) Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer, said Matthew Delmont, who teaches history at Dartmouth College. He said the new federal holiday ‘hopefully provides a moment on the calendar every year when all Americans can spend time thinking seriously about the history of our country.'”

We second that hope. And we hope that reflection brings about a focus on the many things that unite us as a people so that the things that have divided us can remain in the past, where they belong. They must not be forgotten. But they must not divide us.

By remembering and acknowledging our past, but by also celebrating that tremendous moment when the final enslaved Black people learned they had been freed — imagine their joy! — we can come together as one to create and enjoy a better future for this great nation.