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Chapter 6 Juneteenth: Emancipation and Memory Elizabeth Hayes Turner Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, Union commander of the Department of Texas, arrived at the port of Galveston on June 19, 1865. His first tasks were to secure the coast and take command of the eighteen hundred Union troops in Texas after the formal surrender of Confederate Lt. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith on June 2, 1865. On the day of his arrival, General Granger allegedly went to the antebellum home known as Ashton Villa in the center of town. There, from the balcony, he read General Orders No. 3 and announced to the slaves of that city and of Texas that they were free. His orders came as a proclamation from the “Executive of the United States.”The Galveston Daily News carried a printed notice two days later that read in part, “The people are informed . . . that all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor.” History and memory record the moment of emancipation in Texas with the reading of the General Orders. Former slaves in Texas referred to the day of their freedom as Juneteenth, and they and their descendants retained June 19 as a time of celebration. Emancipation carried with it the solemn expectation of life without chains, whips, sales, separations, rapes, and forced labor; it offered the promise of a future based on legal equality. The meaning and the memory of Juneteenth are intertwined in accounts both historical and contemporary. No one can doubt the importance of the event, especially now that it is commemorated in celebrations all over the world and has been granted official holiday status in Texas and in Okla- 144 elizabeth hayes turner homa. As a result of the energy committed to this event, the memory of emancipation has emerged as a powerful and empowering force. The annual reminder of slavery’s end in Texas cannot be understood as merely the recollections of a minority people; whites and many ethnic groups share this common history stemming from the event itself or from the yearly celebrations. Yet memories of emancipation and its meaning among white Texans bring a different focus, demonstrating that their remembrances of the aftermath of the Civil War shaped a dominant cultural response in contrast to that recalled by African Americans. White recollections denied the importance or the wisdom of emancipation. Most white Texans after the Civil War believed that freedpeople had been happier in slavery, that their freedom had not led to material gain, that, in fact, they had been better off as slaves, cared for by benign masters even into old age. As segregation took hold in Texas, Juneteenth and its message of freedom struggled to be heard or appreciated by whites. Yet Juneteenth celebrations, which began in 1866 and have been observed ever since, have always held meaning and historical memory for blacks. The fact that annual observances did not cease, even in the days of the civil rights movement when they disappeared from newspapers but not from private gatherings, is trenchant testimony to the strength of an emancipationist memory. This chapter purports to explore the meaning of the historical event— the announcement of freedom in Texas in June 1865—and participants’ memories of it. Ultimately, freedom’s promise succumbed to the realities of postwar life, but June 19 became associated with yearly gatherings. Without doubt Juneteenth celebrations changed over time; they often began with solemn religious observances followed by parades, dignified programs, park gatherings, and feasting. Toward the turn of the twentieth century, committees planned the events, and by the 1920s through the 1940s commercialism as well as disillusionment with unfulfilled promises of equality found expression in Juneteenth observances. By the 1960s, Juneteenth disappeared from public spaces in cities like Houston and Dallas and in smaller places such as Gainesville to reemerge in new form by the 1970s. The new Juneteenth holidays spread from one to several days and included African American artistic expression along with memories of the past. Admittedly, emancipation’s memory took on new significance against a backdrop of racial and economic discrimination in a region hostile to the rising expectations of African Americans. The annual celebrations and the emergence of collective memories that followed year after year offered a reminder that freedom is a national treasure, a symbol and a reality worth...

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