One holiday, with two names. In 1936, the Register’s A. Morton Smith wrote a Town Topic column about the Emancipation Day celebrations expected to occur in Gainesville. In 2021, the holiday Smith wrote about became a federal holiday known as Juneteenth. This day, June 19th, has a long history.
President Lincoln freed all of the three million enslaved people in America with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but in Texas, many of those newly freed people were not made aware of their freedom until two years later, on June 19th in 1865. Union soldiers entered Galveston, Texas and shared the good news. The news was met with prayer and a deeply felt celebration by the 250,000 people who had been enslaved there. A year later, the Texans decided to make it an annual feast and celebration. Juneteenth began to spread across the country. In its birthplace, Texas, Juneteenth has been a state holiday since 1980.
According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Juneteenth represents African American resilience and achievement. In 1936, the Register noted that one tenth of the citizens of Gainesville were African Americans, and they were happily preparing for the celebration with “more spirit.” Smith compared Juneteenth to Independence Day. For the previously enslaved people of America, it truly represented a day of independence and hope.
This project is made possible by grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and with the help of UNT Libraries.
Gainesville Daily Register Digitization Project 