{"id":701,"date":"2021-06-18T15:23:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T15:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/?p=701"},"modified":"2021-07-06T18:29:29","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T18:29:29","slug":"what-is-juneteenth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/what-is-juneteenth\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Juneteenth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mw-md ma-auto pr-sm pl-sm mt-md flex-ns justify-between\">\n<div class=\"byline-container\">\n<div class=\"byline flex mb-xs \" data-qa=\"byline\">\n<div class=\"dib gray-dark font--subhead self-center author-text font-xxs \">\n<div class=\"flex mb-xs items-center\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"author\">\n<div class=\"dib items-center\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"authors\">\n<div class=\"font-xxxs dib font-xxs-ns\" style=\"text-align: center;\" data-qa=\"name-with-optional-link\" data-cy=\"name-with-optional-link\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"namewithoptionallink\"><span class=\"gray-darkest\" data-qa=\"attribution-text\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"namewithoptionallink\">By&nbsp;<\/span><a class=\"gray-darkest b bb bc-gray bt-hover\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/people\/gillian-brockell\/\" data-qa=\"author-name\">Gillian Brockell<\/a>,&nbsp;<a class=\"gray-darkest b bb bc-gray bt-hover\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/people\/kate-rabinowitz\/\" data-qa=\"author-name\">Kate Rabinowitz<\/a>&nbsp;<span class=\"\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"authors\"><span class=\"font-xxxs gray-darkest font-xxs-ns\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"delimiter\">&nbsp;and<span data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"_ref3\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><a class=\"gray-darkest b bb bc-gray bt-hover\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/people\/frank-hulley-jones\/\" data-qa=\"author-name\">Frank Hulley-Jones<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"dib items-center\" style=\"text-align: center;\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"authors\"><span class=\"\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"authors\"><span class=\"font-xxxs gray-darkest font-xxs-ns\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"delimiter\"><span data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"_ref3\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"mb-md gray-dark font--subhead font-xxs pb-xs\n        \" style=\"text-align: center;\">June 17, 2021<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"z-7\">\n<div class=\"flex items-center \" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"articleactions\">\n<div class=\"dib\" data-sc-v=\"4.27.3\" data-sc-c=\"tooltip\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"story relative\">\n<p class=\"\n            font--body\n            font-copy\n            color-gray-darkest\n            pb-md\n            mw-md ma-auto pr-sm pl-sm \">On June 19, 1865, Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger stepped onto a balcony in Galveston, Tex. \u2014 two months after the Civil War had ended \u2014 and announced that more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were free. President Abraham Lincoln had freed them two and a half years earlier in his Emancipation Proclamation, but since Texas never fell to Union troops in battle, they\u2019d remained in bondage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\n            font--body\n            font-copy\n            color-gray-darkest\n            pb-md\n            mw-md ma-auto pr-sm pl-sm \">The newly emancipated responded with cries of joy and prayers of gratitude \u2014 a celebration that became known as Juneteenth. Black Texans marked the day each year with parades and picnics, music and fine clothes. The gatherings grew through the aborted promise of Reconstruction, through racial terror and Jim Crow, and through the Great Depression, with a major revival in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\n            font--body\n            font-copy\n            color-gray-darkest\n            pb-md\n            mw-md ma-auto pr-sm pl-sm \">Last summer, amid the racial-justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, millions of White Americans became aware of Juneteenth for the first time. Some companies announced they would give employees the day off on Juneteenth, and momentum grew to make it a national holiday. On Tuesday, the Senate voted unanimously to do just that. The House moved quickly Wednesday to pass the bill,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/juneteenth-federal-holiday\/2021\/06\/16\/7be284d8-ceba-11eb-a7f1-52b8870bef7c_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">approving the measure in a 415-to-14 vote<\/a>, and the White House said President Biden will sign the bill in the East Room on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\n            font--body\n            font-copy\n            color-gray-darkest\n            pb-md\n            mw-md ma-auto pr-sm pl-sm \">Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/history\/interactive\/2021\/juneteenth-history-texas-emancipation-photos\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Gillian Brockell,&nbsp;Kate Rabinowitz&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;Frank Hulley-Jones &nbsp; June 17, 2021 On June 19, 1865, Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger stepped onto a balcony in Galveston, Tex. \u2014 two months after the Civil War had ended \u2014 and announced that more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were free. President Abraham Lincoln had freed them two and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ncssinc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}