CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Juneteenth: The Day America Solved Racism by Taking A Day Off From Work

Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900 held in “East Woods” on East 24th Street in Austin. Photo: Austin History Center.

Let’s talk about the holiday America is celebrating today. Ready for an uncomfortable truth? I’m not sure we should be.

This won’t take long.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops set foot in Galveston, Texas, and informed enslaved Black people that they were free…more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Yeah. Let that sink in.

For generations after Black Texans—and later Black communities across the country, thanks to the Great Migration—marked the occasion with church services, family gatherings, and parades. At that point, it was not a national holiday. It was a distinctly Black tradition rooted in a specific historical experience. That matters because Juneteenth was originally less about inviting white Americans into the celebration and more about helping Black Americans remember what freedom actually cost.

All that changed on June 17, 2021. That’s the day President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. It was a good idea. I get why he did it.

But am I........

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