By Shannon Zander<\/p>\n
A Brief History of Juneteenth <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Juneteenth, a portmanteau of \u201cJune\u201d and \u201cnineteenth,\u201d is today! Juneteenth<\/p>\n commemorates June 19, 1865, when\u00a0Union\u00a0General\u00a0Gordon Granger\u00a0read federal orders in\u00a0Galveston,\u00a0Texas, that all previously\u00a0enslaved\u00a0people in Texas were free. Although President Abraham Lincoln\u2019s Emancipation Proclamation had been signed two and a half years prior, there was no one to ensure that the proclamation was known and upheld in the absence of federal troops.<\/p>\n Manya Whitaker, associate professor of education and interim director of the Butler Center, likened Juneteenth to the Fourth of July: \u201cfor many Black descendants of enslaved people, Juneteenth \u2014 or Jubilee \u2014 is our independence day. Just as July 4th<\/sup> is celebrated in memory of the colonies gaining independence from England, Juneteenth is when the last enslaved people, 2 \u00bd years after slavery was supposed to have ended, were finally set free in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n Whitaker noted that the marginalization and oppression of Black individuals certainly did not cease on June 19, 1865, as many of the previous enslaved individuals \u201chad no choice but to remain on the plantation where they\u2019d lived their entire lives and continue working as they\u2019d always worked as \u2018paid\u2019 labor, never earning enough to be able to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNevertheless, this day is historic and is celebrated in Black communities nationwide as a moment to remind ourselves that we\u2019ve overcome the unimaginable and we will continue to fight for our humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Why Awareness of Juneteenth Has Been On the Rise:
\n<\/strong>Awareness of Juneteenth is on the rise in the United States. In June 2018, the number of Google searches for the term \u201cJuneteenth\u201d nearly tripled. Currently, the interest in Juneteenth is the highest Google Trends has ever recorded.<\/p>\n