Join Other Horizon Members at Carrollton’s Juneteenth Events!
Historical Black Cemetery Cleanup
Saturday, June 13th, 8 AM
1535 W. Beltline Rd, Carrollton TX
Bring your rakes, large garbage bags, weed eaters, shovels, etc (some tools provided)
Celebration of Juneteenth
Saturday, June 13th 10 AM - 2 PM
Mary Heads Carter Park
2320 Heads Lane, Carrollton TX
Food, music, fun!
The Significance and Brief History of Juneteenth
Juneteenth is a US holiday celebrating freedom and the end of the legal hereditary enslavement of Black Africans and their descendants in the United States. It was declared a national holiday by President Biden in 2021, and has been celebrated widely since 1865, particularly by Black Americans, starting in Texas and later across the South and then nationwide.
While the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln in January, 1863, declared the freedom from enslavement of all persons in areas of active rebellion (during the US Civil War), the practical effect was negligible until enforced by Union troops. The most famous incident of this belated enforcement occurred on June 19th, 1865, when Major Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, and more than two years later publicly ordered enforcement of emancipation and “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.”
June the nineteenth, later shortened to Juneteenth, began to be celebrated by communities of those freed from slavery and their supporters, at first sporadically as a self-organized gathering of families and neighbors, then over time in a more organized way, eventually achieving local, then state, and finally national recognition.
Juneteenth is often most exuberantly expressed on the third Saturday in June, with large gatherings, street fairs, picnics, feasts, and barbecues. Other practices include readings of the Emancipation Proclamation and noted works by Black authors, with the singing of Freedom Songs, parades, athletic events, etc. Red food and drinks, representing joy and resilience, are prominent, including red soda and red velvet cake. From its beginning, originally called Jubilee Day, Juneteenth has centered political activism, starting with giving voting instructions to newly freed Black Americans.
Celebration of Juneteenth has filled the void and met the need for a single, recognizable date to note, commemorate, and joyously acknowledge the formal end of the institution of slavery and the great joy in the hearts of Americans at its end -- particularly for the people who had been living under its daily terror. Juneteenth has become a central, defining moment of community for many Black Americans across the country.