Letter From America

Juneteenth is particularly important while voter suppression is still rife

You’d be forgiven for being a little confused about why Juneteenth, a holiday that specifically celebrates the end of slavery in Texas, is so nationally important, writes Holly Baxter

Tuesday 21 June 2022 21:30 BST
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<p>Spectators watch a Juneteenth parade commemorating the end of slavery in the United States in Galveston, Texas last year </p>

Spectators watch a Juneteenth parade commemorating the end of slavery in the United States in Galveston, Texas last year

Juneteenth only became a federal holiday – the American equivalent of a bank holiday – in 2021, despite the fact that it’s been celebrated informally for years. Biden signed the declaration on 17 June last year, and most businesses across the US now give their employees time off to observe. It’s an occasion that confuses a lot of Brits, but it has special significance in relation to the Black Lives Matter movement and will no doubt become much more widely recognised internationally over the next decade.

You’d be forgiven for being a little confused about why Juneteenth, a holiday that specifically celebrates the end of slavery in Texas, is so important nationally. The answer is long and complicated, but it’s worth providing a quick summary:

Even though the slave trade had been outlawed years before by Britain and the US, the practice of keeping people enslaved continued in the southern states for much longer. During the American civil war, slave-owners on the side of the Confederacy moved into Texas with their slaves as the Lone Star state continued fighting, supposedly convinced that the economic survival of the state depended on being able to use enslaved people to cultivate the land. (It’s worth pointing out that not everyone involved in the war fought for the Confederacy; thousands of Texans also fought for the anti-slavery union.)

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