While it only recently became a federal holiday, Juneteenth has been celebrated by African Americans since 1866, a year after General Gordon Granger announced on June 19, 1865, that all enslaved people in Texas were freed. A remote Confederate state with few Union troops, Texas was the last to end slavery, despite the fact that Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued three and a half years before.
Fits and Starts
What relief and jubilation Juneteenth must have inspired among slaves and abolitionists all those years ago. One can just imagine Granger’s monumental pronouncement, perhaps made from atop his horse, that Lincoln’s decree would stand across every state in the Union.
We’ve come a long way since then, and yet, progress has not been linear. Consider the white supremacist turn of events following post-Civil War Reconstruction, particularly in the Jim Crow American South. Consider, too, the revocation of certain DEI initiatives in just the past few months.
Such fits and starts have made Juneteenth celebrations over the decades all the more meaningful.
Juneteenth Throughout the Years
For many years, Juneteenth was an almost exclusively Black American celebration, predominantly in towns and communities scattered throughout the South. But after the Great Depression, it grew in prominence, drawing as many as 175,000 people in Dallas in 1936. In 1945, Juneteenth came to San Francisco by way of Wesley Johnson, originally from Texas; in 1951, again in Dallas, tens of thousands gathered for a “Juneteenth Jamboree.”
When millions of Black Americans moved from the South to other parts of the U.S. in hopes of escaping the injustices of Jim Crow, “The people from Texas took Juneteenth to Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and other places they went,” said historian and author Isabel Wilkerson.
Always acknowledged in Texas, Juneteenth was declared a “holiday of significance” there in the late 1970s. The United States as a whole formally followed suit in 2021 when then-President Joe Biden declared it a federal holiday. In recognition, many states fly the Juneteenth flag over their Capitol buildings.
Anti-Slavery Quakers
Around the time the first slaves were brought from Africa to American shores in the 17th century, Quakers (formerly called the Religious Society of Friends) arrived from England in search of religious freedom. Founded in 1650, Quakerism places an emphasis on pacifism, equality and fair treatment of all people. As such, Quakers played a key role in the abolition of slavery and the Underground Railroad, particularly throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
Even as early as 1688, German Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, issued the first formal anti-slavery protest in the American colonies, arguing that slavery was not consistent with Christian principles.
Key Quaker figures such as Anthony Benezet, John Woolman and Levi Coffin were influential anti-slavery activists. Benezet founded schools for Black children and wrote pamphlets condemning slavery that were widely read in both America and Europe. Woolman traveled many miles to urge fellow Quakers to free slaves and reject slave-made goods. Coffin was dubbed the “President of the Underground Railroad” for helping over 3,000 slaves escape to freedom from his home in Indiana. Like Coffin, many Quakers provided safe houses for enslaved people, providing food, shelter and guidance north. While risky, resisting slavery was considered a moral imperative by Quakers who believed in equality and inclusion for all people.
Quakerism and Collington
Collington and all Kendal communities are deeply rooted in the Quaker pursuit of liberty and justice for all. Regardless of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or any other characteristic, everyone is welcome.
At Collington, residents and team members are living proof of our commitment to providing a safe haven for people of myriad races, cultures, backgrounds and affinities. Here, we celebrate our diversity and consider it a hallmark of our community.
Juneteenth gives us yet one more opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate the sacred right of equality and inclusion for all, as well as the Quaker values underpinning this historic day.
Click here for information about Juneteenth celebrations in the Washington, D.C. area this year.
