By Holly Ramer
The Associated Press
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Juneteenth celebrations unfolded across the U.S. on June 19, marking the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas and attracting participants who said current events strengthened their resolve to be heard.
The holiday has been celebrated by Black Americans for generations, but became more widely observed after being designated a federal holiday in 2021 by former President Joe Biden, who attended a Juneteenth event at a church in Galveston, Texas, the holiday’s birthplace.
Biden said he was proud to sign the law making Juneteenth a federal holiday because “all Americans should know the weight and power of this day.”
“Some say to me and you that this doesn’t deserve to be a federal holiday. They don’t want to remember what we all remember–the moral stain of slavery,” he said.
The celebrations come as President Donald Trump’s administration has worked to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government and remove content about Black American history from federal websites. Trump’s travel ban on visitors from select countries has also led to bitter national debate.
In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Robert Reid waved a large Juneteenth flag at the city’s African Burying Ground Memorial Park, where African drummers and dancers led the crowd in song and dance. Reid, 60, said he attended in part to stand against what he called Trump’s “divide and conquer” approach.
“It’s time for people to get pulled together instead of separated,” he said.
Jordyn Sorapuru, 18, visiting New Hampshire from California, called the large turnout a “beautiful thing.”
“It’s nice to be celebrated every once in a while, especially in the political climate right now,” she said. “With the offensive things going on right now, with brown people in the country and a lot of people being put at risk for just existing, having celebrations like this is really important.”
Juneteenth’s origins and this year’s celebrations
The holiday to mark the end of slavery in the U.S. goes back to an order issued on June 19, 1865, as Union troops arrived in Galveston at the end of the Civil War. General Order No. 3 declared that all enslaved people in the state were free and had “absolute equality.”
Juneteenth is recognized at least as an observance in every state, and nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C., have designated it as a permanent paid or legal holiday through legislation or executive action.
In Virginia, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held for rebuilding the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.
In Fort Worth, Texas, about 2,500 people participated in Opal Lee’s annual Juneteenth walk. The 98-year-old Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth” for the years she spent advocating to make the day a federal holiday, was recently hospitalized and didn’t participate in public this year. But her granddaughter, Dione Sims, said Lee was “in good spirits.”
“The one thing that she would tell the community and the nation at large is to hold on to your freedoms,” Sims said. “Hold on to your freedom and don’t let it go, because it’s under attack right now.”
Events were planned throughout the day in Galveston, including a parade, a celebration at a park with music and the service at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church that Biden attended.
During a Juneteenth speech in Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore announced pardons for 6,938 cases of simple marijuana possession, which can hinder employment and educational opportunities and have disproportionately affected the Black community.
Moore, a Democrat who is Maryland’s first Black governor and the only Black governor currently serving, last year ordered tens of thousands of pardons for marijuana possession. The newly announced pardons weren’t included in that initial announcement because they’d been incorrectly coded.
In New Hampshire, the June 19 gathering capped nearly two weeks of events organized by the Black History Trail of New Hampshire aimed at both celebrating Juneteenth and highlighting contradictions in the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding fathers ahead of next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“In a time when efforts to suppress Black history are on the rise, and by extension, to suppress American history, we stand firm in the truth,” said JerriAnne Boggis, the Heritage Trail’s executive director. “This is not just Black history, it is all of our history.”
What the 47th president has said about Juneteenth
During his first administration, Trump issued statements each June 19, including one that ended with “On Juneteenth 2017, we honor the countless contributions made by African Americans to our Nation and pledge to support America’s promise as the land of the free.”
When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked during her June 19 media briefing whether the president would commemorate the holiday this year, she replied, “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today.”
Later that day, Trump complained on his social media site about “too many non-working holidays” and said it is “costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed.” Most retailers are open on Juneteenth, while federal workers generally get a day off because the government is closed.
New Hampshire, one of the nation’s Whitest states, is not among those with a permanent, paid or legal Juneteenth holiday, and Boggis said her hope that lawmakers would take action making it one is waning.
“I am not so sure anymore given the political environment we’re in,” she said. “I think we’ve taken a whole bunch of steps backwards in understanding our history, civil rights and inclusion.”
Still, she hopes New Hampshire’s events and those elsewhere will make a difference.
“It’s not a divisive tool to know the truth. Knowing the truth helps us understand some of the current issues that we’re going through,” she said.
And if spreading that truth comes with a bit of fun, all the better, she said.
“When we come together, when we break bread together, we enjoy music together, we learn together, we dance together, we’re creating these bonds of community,” she said. “As much as we educate, we also want to celebrate together.”
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Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this report.