Native News
Juneteenth Reminds America That Freedom Delayed Is Justice Denied
Opinion
Five years ago, President Joe Biden signed Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 17, 2021, formally recognizing a day that commemorates one of the most significant moments in American history. Also known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865—the day enslaved people in Texas were finally informed that slavery had ended.
On that day, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Orders, Number 3:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
The announcement came two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, and more than two months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, effectively ending the Civil War.
Viewed through a modern lens, the delay is astonishing. Even in an era without the internet, social media, or 24-hour cable news, it strains credibility that the news took so long to reach Texas. The reality is more uncomfortable: many in Texas resisted the end of the Confederacy and fought to preserve slavery for as long as possible. A telegram—or an 1860s version of Paul Revere on horseback—could have carried the news much sooner.
That history raises an unsettling question: Has some of that resistance to confronting racial injustice lingered across generations?
Just two days before President Biden signed the Juneteenth legislation into law, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed controversial legislation restricting how educators discuss racism in public school classrooms.
Although the measure does not specifically mention “critical race theory,” it has widely been characterized as anti-critical race theory legislation. Critical race theory is an academic framework that argues racism is embedded in legal systems and institutions rather than existing solely as the product of individual prejudice.
There are those who believe discussions of racism should be kept out of public classrooms.
Democratic lawmakers secured compromises in the Texas bill, including language allowing instruction about White supremacy. Even so, Abbott expressed dissatisfaction and vowed to seek stronger legislation that would further limit how race and racism are taught in schools.
Abbott is among several Republican governors who have sought to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory or related concepts. In doing so, many act as though racism has not been a defining force in American history. That effort to erase or sanitize the past amounts to whitewashing history.
Against that backdrop, the creation of a federal Juneteenth holiday was an important step. At the same time, President Biden’s signature on the legislation cannot, by itself, repair generations of fractured race relations in the United States.
In recognition of Juneteenth, the National Congress of American Indians issued the following statement:
“Today we honor and celebrate Juneteenth as a national holiday. On June 19th, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas with the news the Civil War ended and slaves were now free.
A Civil War continues to this day. It never really ended. Truth be told, we remain sharply divided as a country and, along with our Black brothers and sisters, we have yet to break free from the shackles of centuries of systemic and institutional racism, oppression, and marginalization.
Our day of freedom and emancipation will no doubt come. Until then, we will continue to speak our painful truths, demand justice and equality for all, and rise toward God’s perfect glory for each of us, individually and in this great nation, collectively.”
Juneteenth is not the culmination of America’s long struggle with race. It is a reminder that freedom delayed is justice denied and that the work of confronting the nation’s history—and its enduring inequalities—remains unfinished. The holiday provides an opportunity not only to remember the past but also to measure how far the country still has to go.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen – We are all related.