Many people celebrate the Juneteenth holiday with a picnic, party or community gathering. One Virginia Tech professor said at the heart of each event should be a message of unity, justice and liberty for all.
“If you see a situation where millions of Americans were forced to work without pay for hundreds of years, you would think it’s only a harm being done to people of African descent,” said Dr. Onwubiko Agozino, a sociology and Africana studies professor at Virginia Tech.
“But you would be wrong, because what affects one section of society affects us all,” Agozino said.
The Juneteenth holiday is short for June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers reached the last remaining enslaved people in Galveston, Texas. They learned they were free and slavery had officially ended nationwide, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863.
The first Juneteenth celebration took place one year later.
Agozino said marking the occasion is a chance for everyone to celebrate liberty then and now.
“Juneteenth reminds us that we are all citizens of America,” he said. “The recognition that this is a significant date in our history is timeless. Justice is never outdated.”
Agozino said people should mark the holiday by studying some of its history before heading to a celebration with friends and family.
But what is most important is passing on the Juneteenth story to children, Agozino said.
“We should take this knowledge and integrate it into our education system,” he said. “So they know that we do not accept any form of discrimination against fellow human beings.”
