Reflection for June 19 – Juneteenth
As a young teenager, I was qualified to enter an essay contest sponsored by the Ladies Auxiliary of the American Legion Post in my small town: I lived in one of the thirteen original colonies, was thirteen years old, and was born on the Fourth of July (and for an added bonus point if needed, in Gettysburg.) The theme of the essay and its title was, “What My American Freedoms Mean to Me.” My essay was one of thirteen selected for an award of an honorary trip to Philadelphia to celebrate Independence Day. The essay has long vanished along with my naive understanding of the history of American freedom.
Juneteenth is sometimes called “America’s Second Independence Day,” but this designation flattens the many layers of its complex history. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, but news of the ending of slavery in all confederate states did not reach its last stronghold until June 19, 1865, a date several months after the official end of the Civil War on April 9, 1865. However, slavery wasn’t officially prohibited until the adoption of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1865, and even then, there is an exception.
On June 19, 1865, 250,000 enslaved persons were declared free when the U.S. Army advanced into Texas. For many people who had worked without rest or compensation for their labor, who had endured unimaginable cruelty and generational injury and trauma, who were without land, property, or wealth, freedom arrived with few options but to remain where they were and to continue the struggle for freedom that really is freedom.
The following year, June 19, 1866, Juneteenth was remembered and celebrated by those who had been granted their freedom the previous year. Juneteenth celebrations continued and moved across the country as African Americans moved to new states and communities seeking opportunities and calling the United States to recognize the rights and freedoms of all its citizens.
After celebrating the Juneteenth holiday for 114 years, in 1980, the state of Texas became the first to make it a statewide holiday. Other states followed, and in 2021, Juneteenth was designated a federal holiday. It is a holiday about which, as someone who is white, I never learned about until decades after I penned an essay on the meaning of my American freedoms; freedoms that were not and are not yet, shared by all people.
With freedom, civil and human rights, and the knowledge of the painful and tragic histories that will set us free and heal us under threat, Juneteenth is a reminder of the ongoing struggle for human dignity and equality. As Cole Arthur Riley writes in “Juneteenth,” from her book, Black Liturgies – Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, “We gather not just to honor freedom rung, but in protection and continuation of it.”1
Honor Juneteenth and its legacy of the resilience and hope of people whose hearts and minds are “stayed on freedom.” Commit to learn the history you were never taught,2 and pray and work for God’s justice and freedom for all people, that American freedoms may be true, protected, restored and continued for coming generations.
The Rev. Sue Koenig is the MCNP Director of Racial Justice and Healing.
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1 Riley, Arthur Cole, Black Liturgies – Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, Convergent, New York, 2024, p. 269.
2 You are invited to join an ecumenical Zoom “Sacred Ground” learning experience beginning with an introductory session on August 11, 2025, from 7 to 8:30 pm ET; or contact suekoenig@mcnp for more information.
