Kimberly Frey Consulting

Today is Juneteenth. While this day has been celebrated within the Black community for over a century, it was only recognized as a national holiday in 2021.

Juneteenth literally is the shortened form of June 19th. It was on this day in 1865 that the last group of enslaved people within the Confederate states received word that they had been declared free through Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation more than two years prior on January 1st, 1863. Although this was when enslaved people in Texas finally learned they had been set free two years ago, this didn’t automatically equal them being treated as the free men and women that they were. Many plantation owners simply withheld this information from the slaves who worked their land until after the harvest season ended or until forced to disclose the news by Union soldiers so as to not lose their free labor.

While Juneteenth is the ceremonial end of slavery within the Confederacy, in truth, slavery was still allowed throughout the Union states of the United States until the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December of 1865. Border states such as Delaware, Kentucky, and Maryland were legally still allowed to keep slaves as were northern “free” states like New Jersey. Even in so-called free states such as Oregon and California, there were plenty of loopholes that allowed landowners to continue to keep slaves well past the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Let’s be very clear – slavery did NOT end on June 19th, 1865, but it was a huge step forward in the fight for freedom. Honoring and celebrating this day is the right thing to do, both because of its importance and as a way to increase knowledge and understanding. I will be the first to admit that I had never even heard of this date until I left the South where I had lived for a quite some time and returned home to Chicago.

This Juneteenth, let us honor the work that has been done in the name of freedom while acknowledging that there is still so much work still to do. Even though it is 2024, and we are over a century removed from this era, our freedom is still under attack on a regular basis. Freedom is never free, and it is our collective responsibility to ensure it is preserved.