June 19th is Juneteenth, or emancipation day!
Although the emancipation proclamation on January 1, 1863 declared that slavery was unjust and illegal, it continued in many southern states. During the civil war, many slaveowners shipped their slaves to Texas to evade the union’s reach. Slavery didn’t even end on April 9, 1865 when the Civil war ended. On June 19, 1865, the union army was able to get to Texas and begin to enforce the emancipation proclamation. While Juneteenth is the day many enslaved people were freed in Texas, unfortunately it still doesn’t mark the end of slavery in America. Both formerly confederate and union states were still using enslaved people. It took persistent policing and military occupation to finally see the end of slavery as it was known, but exploitative practices and violence against African-Americans continued through the reconstruction era (1863-1877), the Jim Crow era (1877 - 1954), and the Civil Rights era (1954 - 1968).
Of course discriminatory practices and violence against African-americans still continue to this day, with lynching only recently becoming a federal hate crime thanks to the passing of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act of 2022. As Joe Biden stated at the ceremony "Hate never goes away, it only hides under the rocks. If it gets a little bit of oxygen, it comes roaring back out, screaming. What stops it? All of us."
