Juneteenth
A Sculptor Takes His Craft to the Skies
GREENWOOD, Miss. — On Saturday night, June 18, the Memphis-based artist Desmond Lewis was in a public park unloading cakes — bundles of fireworks connected by a high-speed fuse — from a pickup truck. On the other side of a nearby tree line waited about 150 expectant onlookers for the Juneteenth celebration in the city […]
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What Is Juneteenth?
Juneteenth, an annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War, has been celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s. President Biden signed legislation last year that made Juneteenth, which falls on June 19, a federal holiday, after interest in the day was renewed during the summer of […]
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National Juneteenth Museum Takes Shape in Fort Worth
In 2016, at 89, Opal Lee walked from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to help get Juneteenth made a federal holiday, which it finally was in 2021. And for nearly 20 years, she has operated a modest Juneteenth Museum in a property on Rosedale Street, which also served as a filming location […]
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Juneteenth Is a U.S. Holiday, but Not a Day Off In Most States
“This is something that Black folk deserve and it was like we had to almost prove ourselves to get them to agree,” said Anthony Nolan, a state representative in Connecticut, where legislators argued for hours earlier this year before passing legislation to fund the holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, when Gordon […]
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Building a Juneteenth Menu for the 21st Century, One Recipe at a Time
African Americans crave locally harvested, coast-to-coast, U.S.D.A. Prime liberty, in all its bitter sweetness. On June 19, 1865, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3, informing the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now […]
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