Juneteenth of Protest

On this day 155 years ago, a U.S. general marched into Galveston, Texas, carrying an order from President Abraham Lincoln. All enslaved men, women and children were now free, General Order No. 3 declared. 

The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed in 1863, but it took more than two years to relay the message to the Lone Star State, where an estimated 250,000 people were still being held as slaves — a devastatingly long delay that feels strikingly emblematic of our country’s sluggishness in righting its racial wrongs. 

As a journalist in Galveston, I wrote about a movement to make June 19 a national holiday. I interviewed Samuel Collins III of Hitchcock, who hosted a Juneteenth celebration each year at Stringfellow Orchards, a historic site once owned by a Confederate veteran, that Collins and his wife transformed into a living history lesson. 

Collins told me then, “All of us can benefit from what Juneteenth represents. We are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain of the community.” 
 

AP Images   

That was 13 years ago, but Collins’ words feel especially poignant today amid a pandemic waging a deadlier toll on Black communities and the continued brutality of Black individuals — especially Black men — at the hands of police and a broken criminal justice system. 

Want to learn more? Read about the nation’s oldest celebration of the abolition of slavery at Juneteenth.com and check out this oped from Rodney Ellis, a Harris County commissioner, on why he's cautiously optimistic that "America is finally ready to have a reckoning on race."