Monday, June 19th marked the newest Federal holiday, “Juneteenth.” Some are only becoming aware of the holiday while others, particularly in the African American community, have been familiar with it for decades. President Joe Biden signed legislation for Juneteenth to become a Federal holiday on June 17, 2021.

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law in 1863, but it took two years for news of the Proclamation to reach enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. That date is reported to have been June 19, 1865. “Juneteenth,” the name given the day that news was posted, symbolizes the abolishment of all forms of oppression and the advancement of justice and equality.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell’s Third Annual Juneteenth Celebration and Resource Fair was held this past Sunday, June 18. It was an all-day event on Century Blvd.

Mitchell said that for her, Juneteenth is “Really about how we define freedom for ourselves today. My job is to bring government to the people, by having the record expungement, info about tenant’s rights, county firefighters, lifeguards, community-based organizations – government at work.”

“At every hub, there is a question of how people define freedom. Is it knowledge? Community?” she asked. Mitchell wants citizens to pause and think about what freedom means to them, and how we define it in the context of 2023. “Interestingly enough, I have mixed feelings about it because I don’t want people to think it’s a holiday as a day off,” said Mitchell. “The way I think about Cesar Chavez Day and Martin Luther King Day is that it has to be a day on where we engage with the community and do community work.”

She states she has known about Juneteenth for a good number of years. Mitchell took her first Black History class as a freshman in high school. She also took Black History as a freshman at UC Riverside.

Kayana Tyson is a Compton resident and a part of A New Way of Life Reentry Project, an organization that is supporting ACA 8, a constitutional amendment to get rid of slavery in the California State constitution. She said that she thinks that Juneteenth is a day that we should have had a long time ago. “I think it’s something I’m grateful for that we eventually got to have, and although we do celebrate this day, we’re still not completely free.”

Tyson appreciates that President Biden made Juneteenth a Federal holiday. But she feels that there are still things we need to get done and she feels like we need more days like Juneteenth. She has known about Juneteenth since 2018. She admits that “It is a day that you have to sit down and research because we weren’t really educated ourselves and there are still some Black people that don’t know about Juneteenth. It took so long for Juneteenth to become a holiday because America didn’t want to fully admit to its wrongs. They gave us Black History Month just to honor the people that made a big impact in our community.” She added, “Juneteenth is actually reminding them about the trials and tribulations of Black people and what happened in this country. It’s about not wanting to be accountable, and not bringing up the past, and so I think that’s why it took a long time to have this day.”

She feels like the more Juneteenth is celebrated each year, the more we’re going to become an advocate for it. “We have the resource fair and there are so many events now that are surrounding Juneteenth, like block parties, that it does bring us together to actually celebrate a time in history that we need to remember.”

Wendy Tate, a Compton resident and executive assistant for Supervisor Mitchell, said that she is glad Juneteenth is finally a Federal holiday. “I’m glad that we as a family are getting nationwide exposure for this very important event that happened back in the 1800s. And for us to be in L.A. County today celebrating Juneteenth, I think it’s wonderful.” She added, “I hope that people will take this holiday as an opportunity to learn more about African American culture, in particular, what our forefathers did.”

Tate learned about Juneteenth twenty years ago from a group of senior citizens in Willowbrook, an unincorporated area of L.A. County. She said some were from Texas and recalled stories from their grandparents from that day and they did an annual luncheon to celebrate Juneteenth.

George Turner, a resident of Los Angeles, is a deputy in charge of the homeless mobile unit at the Public Defender’s office. He said that Juneteenth is long overdue as a national holiday, and not just as something that is recognized in the south or in Texas but throughout the country. “I first heard about Juneteenth in the early 1980s. My mother is someone who was born and raised in West Virginia and someone who is always knowledgeable about the history of our people. She wanted us to know a little bit of everything and she taught me about Juneteenth as a child.” He added, “I think that Juneteenth is a powerful celebration of our liberation and it was created by people from the community who really organized and put in the work necessary to make this a national holiday, and I’m thankful that it exists.”

“To me, I feel like it definitely lets us acknowledge the situation before instead of saying, no that didn’t happen. I love Juneteenth and I love that we get to celebrate it and it’s a holiday and that we get to come together and in the African American community and the Black community and we’re like, yes –  ‘this is our day’ – and we are going to acknowledge our day of freedom and I just love that,” said Marshell Adams, a Van Nuys resident. Adams also said, “Juneteenth is going to affect generations to come by having the next generation ask questions and wondering why it’s a holiday. They’re going to want to dig into the history and really figure out what happened here in America and how it now affects their lives and the lives that came before them, and those generations to come.”

But Adams has not known about Juneteenth for a long time. “Growing up, we did do Black History Month and it felt like it dealt with more people of Black history as opposed to events. And to be honest, Juneteenth is in the same category as the Tulsa Massacre. It’s like growing up, we’ve dealt with certain people of Black history, we rarely got a chance to hear expect the civil rights movement and we didn’t hear about these other big, huge events that had an effect on African heritage.”

When asked about the anti-woke backlash in some states that may not want to honor Juneteenth, Adams was undaunted. “I’m not worried, we’re here – here to stay. I’m not worried, no.”

Photo by the author.