UNDERSTANDING HISTORY
What Is Juneteenth?
Juneteenth is a celebration in honor of the day the last slaves were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, June 19, 1865. June 19th has since become a resounding celebration throughout the south, and all over America, in the African American Community. The Juneteenth celebrations happen in unison across the nation. Celebrations are taking place in Galveston, Texas; Bogalusa, Louisiana; Oakland, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Denver, Colorado; Kansas City, Kansas; and Lorain, Ohio, with the original birthplace being Galveston, Texas. Today Juneteenth is a celebration oil African American freedom and culture. A more detailed history of Juneteenth follows...
Emancipation Proclamation
Issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery, it did change the basic character of the Civil War. Instead of waging a war to restore the old Union as it was before 1861, the North was now fighting to create a new Union without slavery. The proclamation also authorized the recruitment of African Americans as Union soldiers. By the end of the Civil War, approximately 180,000 African Americans had served in the Union army and 18,000 in the navy.
Ralph Ellison Immortalizes Juneteenth
Ralph Ellison immortalized Juneteenth, the annual celebration of the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when the enslaved Africans in Texas were actually emancipated, in his posthumous novel of the same name.
Ellison's title refers to the date when Union General Gordon Grander rode horseback into Galveston, Texas and announced to nearly 250,000 slaves that President Abraham Lincoln, with a stroke of a pen on the Emancipation Proclamation, had declared them free on January 1, 1863 – more than two years earlier.
Upon hearing the news, the reaction of the newly freed slaves wasn't surprising: they dropped their plows and celebrated their freedom.
Black Soldiers, Fort Huachuca During World War II
Before 1941 about 4,000 Black soldiers (and a handful of African American officers) served in the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments (the “Buffalo Soldiers”), two of the all-black units formed after the Civil War. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the number of Black soldiers in the U.S. military increased. With the expansion of the Army during World War II, blacks were encouraged to enlist, and more black men began to receive commissions as officers. In 1942, as the need for personnel continued to increase, the U.S. Army activated the 93rd Infantry at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the first all-black division formed during World War II. Also in 1942, the Army combined the 9th and 10th Cavalry into the new 2nd Cavalry Division. They were stationed at Fort Huachuca, alongside the 32nd and 33rd Women’s Auxiliary Corps (WAAC).