Image: Emancipation Day Celebration band, June 19, 1900. Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.

Children’s Books

Alliah L. Agostini and Sawyer Cloud: The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States.

Keturah A. Bobo & Alice Faye Duncan: Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth.

Floyd Cooper: Juneteenth for Mazie.

Angela Johnson & E.B. Lewis: All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom Hardcover.

Opal Lee: Juneteenth: A Children’s Story.

Books

Annete Gordon Reed: On Juneteenth.

Francis Edward Abernethy, Patrick B. Mullen, & Alan B. Govenar (editors): Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore.

Articles

Keisha Blain:

• Juneteenth, Reparations and African-American History. (Interview).
• North Carolina plantation’s Juneteenth event underscores South’s historical whitewashing: The plan to center a Juneteenth event around so-called “displaced white refugees” is part of a larger effort to distort narratives about slavery.
• Juneteenth is an opportunity for America to reckon with its racial wealth gap: If businesses are going to celebrate Juneteenth, we need to talk openly about the persistent massive wealth gap between Black and white Americans.
• There’s no better time than Juneteenth to demand reparations for African Americans.

Jamelle Bouie: Why Juneteenth Matters: It was black Americans who delivered on Lincoln’s promise of “a new birth of freedom.”

Brandon Byrd: The Living History of Juneteenth, Our Next National Holiday: A celebration of emancipation in Texas is taking hold in the minds of Americans everywhere.

Julia Carmel: Opal Lee’s Juneteenth Vision Is Becoming Reality: The 94-year-old activist and lifelong Texan has campaigned to make June 19 a national holiday for years.

Rebecca Carroll: Six Black Women on the Meaning of Juneteenth.

N. Jamiyla Chisholm: The Grandmother of Juneteenth on What the Holiday Means to Her: Activist, Ms. Opal Lee, talks to Colorlines about the significance of Juneteenth and why its history should never be forgotten.

Alma Clark, Betty Kimble, & Danielle Phillips-Cunningham:

• Juneteenth started in Texas. So did this Black town. Whites destroyed it. Part 1: How formerly enslaved people created a community of their own.
• White racism brought down a Black community. Will there be reparations? Part 2: Groundless panic about White women’s safety razed a town.

Jacey Fortin: The 1865 Handwritten Order Marking Juneteenth Has Been Found.

Annette Gordon-Reed: Growing Up with Juneteenth.

Robert Greene II: Keeping Juneteenth Radical: Crass commercialization of a holiday is as American as a Labor Day sale, and so it is up to us to keep the true spirit of Juneteenth alive.

Jesse Hagopian: Celebrating Juneteenth by Emancipating History.

Endia Hayes: Ruminations on Juneteenth: Red as a Living Archive.

Tera W. Hunter: Juneteenth And National New Beginnings.

Kellie Carter Jackson:

• Black Joy—Not Corporate Acknowledgment—Is the Heart of Juneteenth: Companies and state governments are finally recognizing Emancipation Day as an official holiday, but black Americans have honored its significance all along.
• What the Push to Celebrate Juneteenth Conceals: The recent effort to make the anniversary a federal holiday is undermined by the simultaneous attack on critical race theory and curricula focused on the enduring legacy of slavery.

James Jones III: The Problem of White-Washing Juneteenth.

Peniel E. Joseph:

• Having Juneteenth as a national holiday offers possibilities Americans can’t ignore.
• Juneteenth, as much as the Fourth of July, is America’s true birthday.

Bitter Kali: Freedom is a Horse: For Juneteenth, a celebration of the liberation and escape that Black Americans found on horses.

Ibram X Kendi: The Juneteenth Mixtape. (podcast).

Opal Lee: Collected articles about “the Grandmother of Juneteenth” on her website.

Tiya Miles: As Juneteenth Goes National, We Must Preserve the Local.

Tasneem Nashrulla: Juneteenth Is Officially A National Holiday. Just Don’t Talk About The Legacy Of Slavery. As conservatives seek to ban critical race theory from schools, many Black Americans wonder if children will fully understand the new holiday marking the end of slavery.

New York Historical Society (video): Celebrating Juneteenth: The Legacy of Frederick Douglass.        

New York Times roundup of articles: Freedom Is In The Claiming.

NPR: What Is Juneteenth? Historians Explain The Holiday’s Importance.

C. Brandon Ogbunu: Why Juneteenth Went Viral: The George Floyd protests have brought the holiday to the foreground. May it be a day of reflection and reckoning.

Giuliana Perrone: Juneteenth and the Broader Black Freedom Struggle.

Benji de la Piedra: Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth and Black Literary History.

Clint Smith: Celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston.

Denise Oliver Velez: Juneteenth and the Texas memorial to Black history.

The Washington Post: Juneteenth. (Interactive visual article.)

Olivia B. Waxman: When Did Slavery Really End in the U.S.? The Complicated History of Juneteenth.

Taryn White: Just across the border, this Mexican community also celebrates Juneteenth: The “Southern Underground Railroad” helped formerly enslaved people reach freedom in northern Mexico. One village here has observed Juneteenth or “Dia de los Negros” for 150 years.