Juneteenth Celebrations Across Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Tri-State Area

Juneteenth in South-Central Pennsylvania

Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the last slaves’ freedom, is celebrated in South-Central Pennsylvania. Events include a flag-raising ceremony in Lancaster, a Juneteenth Jubilee in Lancaster, and a jubilee in Harrisburg.

The Lancaster NAACP is holding a ceremony, while the Young Professionals of Color in Harrisburg are hosting an event with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. These events aim to honor the memory of the last slaves.

Celebrations in the Philadelphia Tri-State Area

Juneteenth is being celebrated in various Philadelphia tri-state municipalities, marking the 4th year it has been recognized as a federal holiday. The Juneteenth Block Party at the African American Museum in Philadelphia will feature performances by hip-hop legends Kid ‘n Play, with the theme “Rhythms of Liberation: Celebrating Juneteenth Through Music.”

A panel hosted by broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien will talk about the difficulties Black women have in the political sphere. Other events include the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington, the 3rd annual Juneteenth Jubilee Street Festival in Norristown, and a Juneteenth HBCU skate event at Millennium Skate World in Camden. The event will also include a sit-down conversation with Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah.

Juneteenth and Civic Education

Juneteenth, a federal holiday, holds greater promise for civic education due to its focus on Black history and acknowledging the historical tension surrounding it. The 1983 voting process for the King holiday was lengthy and conflictual, but the holiday gained political momentum after being stripped of King’s prophetic and revolutionary messages.

In 2021, Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday, providing a rare instance of bipartisan support for laws addressing racial issues. However, tensions around Juneteenth celebrations have increased due to legislative developments that have politicized the holiday. Since January 2021, 44 states have introduced bills limiting the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT), chilling public discussions of race-specific history.

As of 2023, 28 states had implemented laws, executive orders, or other measures imposing limitations and prohibitions on CRT and related subjects. Despite these racial tensions, the historically specific nature of the holiday made a softening of the story less likely. Recasting the tale of the inability to tell an enslaved people of their freedom has proven to be significantly more challenging.

Juneteenth celebrations, like those in Montana, offer an opportunity to strengthen the body politic and honor the forebears who took risks and helped bring about a fuller realization of what democracy could mean and might one day become.

The King holiday can and should continue to be celebrated as a point of national unity around a fallen hero, but the ongoing celebration of Juneteenth holds even greater potential for thorough civic education since it recognises a historically contentious subject.

National Day of Action and Voting Rights

Vice President Kamala Harris has launched Juneteenth’s National Day of Action by highlighting organizations working to expand the right to vote for Black Floridians. Harris highlighted the Florida-based Equal Ground Education Fund, a Black-led non-partisan organization working to expand Black political power in the state.

The organization aims to combat extremist attacks on the sacred freedom to vote, which disproportionately harms Black voters throughout Florida. In Florida, the active voter lists have seen the removal of around a million registered voters since 2022. Florida Senate Bill 7050 implemented severe restrictions to third-party voter registration and mail-in voting, disproportionately impacting voters of color.

The Biden-Harris re-election team aims to rebuild support among Black voters as polls show the president struggling with the crucial demographic. The White House announced Juneteenth as a National Day of Action for voting, and the administration is committed to passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.

Historical Significance of Juneteenth

Juneteenth honours the day that Black people in Galveston, Texas, who had been held as slaves, discovered they were free two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was passed. By the end of the Civil War, Texas’ enslaved Black people had yet to obtain freedom. Slavery had been outlawed in much of the Union by the time the Civil War broke out in 1861.

In 1777, Vermont became the first colony to free its Black slaves. Abolition was progressively implemented in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey between 1780 and 1804, culminating in complete liberation by 1865. On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In the Confederacy, the Proclamation was neither immediately or easily enforced.

The Proclamation was implemented in a variety of methods, including direct military action, recruitment of Black men and women for contraband, and Union triumphs. The estimated 250,000 slaves in Texas were still outside the Proclamation’s jurisdiction by the end of the conflict.

San Antonio’s Juneteenth celebration is underway with history tours, food-focused gatherings, music, and more. The day that Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas following the conclusion of the Civil War is celebrated as a memorial to the abolition of slavery.

Recognition of Juneteenth Across the U.S.

Juneteenth, a US federal holiday since 2021, has been recognized as an official public holiday in at least 30 states, including Rhode Island and Kentucky, and the District of Columbia. However, as the number of states to legally declare Juneteenth a holiday rises, other states continue to cling to holidays honoring the Confederacy.

Ten states in the American south have at least one day commemorating the Confederacy, while six former Confederate states do not officially recognize Juneteenth: Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Mississippi and Alabama each celebrate three Confederate holidays – paid holidays for state employees: Confederate Memorial Day, the birthday of Jefferson Davis, and Robert E Lee Day, to commemorate the leader of the Confederate army.

In Alabama, the Republican governor, Kay Ivey, has authorized this year’s Juneteenth as a state holiday for a fourth year amid faltering legislative efforts to make it a permanent holiday. Efforts to separate the joint state holiday celebrating Robert E Lee Day and the slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. likewise seem to have hit a roadblock in Alabama, as do other states’ attempts to do away with official festivals associated with the Confederacy.