First Juneteenth Day:
The History Behind the First Juneteenth Day
Black folks both nationally and internationally recently celebrated Juneteenth! It is the official, unofficial commemoration of the freeing of millions of African-Americans from slavery during the Civil War. But few people know that the person whose actions started the original Juneteenth festivities was a white man from Wayne County, New York, located next to Rochester and about a hundred miles from Buffalo. Union Army Major General Gordon Granger and his troop landed at Galveston Island, Texas on June 19, 1865 and told blacks there that the war was over and they had been freed.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in the south on January 1, 1863. Lincoln issued the order in his role as Commander-In-Chief with a military act that didn’t need Congress to ratify it. The President freed slaves in only Ten Confederate States still fighting against the U.S. In 1863, 3.1 million of the 4 million black men and women enslaved at the time. The Proclamation also ordered that “suitable” persons among those freed be enrolled in the paid service of United States’ forces. Therefore, by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln was able to cripple the South’s economy by taking away millions of free laborers from its agricultural industry; enrolling 200,000 black men into the Union Army within 2 years to fight for their freedom, and lastly; stopping England or France from entering the war to help the Confederacy – because the North suddenly had the moral high ground. France had abolished slavery in 1813, and England in 1833, so neither country could now intercede to help preserve slavery in the United States.
Abraham Lincoln was first and foremost a shrewd politician (see the film “Lincoln”). He had decided to issue the Proclamation by the spring of 1862, but needed a military victory before he could shift the reason for the increasingly unpopular war – from preserving the Union, to ending slavery. The Civil War was going badly for the North, a Union victory in the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, finally gave Lincoln what he needed! On September 22, he issued a preliminary Proclamation. On January 1, 1863 Lincoln, surrounded by his cabinet, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But it wasn’t until June 1865, 2 years and six months later, that General Granger informed blacks in Galveston that they had been freed, which lead to a massive party and the first Juneteenth celebration.
Major General Gordon Granger was born in 1821, in the Wayne County Hamlet of Joy, within the Town of Sodus. This part of upstate New York was extremely liberal for America of the 19th century. Joy was not far from Pultneyville, on the shores of Lake Ontario, where abolitionists put runaway slaves on boats headed for Canada. Granger was a free-thinking commander, who was often at odds with his superiors in Washington. His order to tell slaves in Galveston they’d been freed got him in trouble but lead to Juneteenth, our great celebration of freedom, and achievement.
