Emancipation, however, was not a singular event in United States history. There were many emancipation days as enslaved people obtained their freedom in the decades spanning American independence through the Civil War. They were an important element of the abolition movement, which fought to end chattel slavery and liberate the millions held in bondage across the country. That goal was not fully realized until December 6, 1865, when the requisite number of states ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, legally ending slavery in the United States.
While Juneteenth has been formally celebrated primarily by people in African American communities in Texas, nearly all states and the District of Columbia recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday or observance. On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
While Juneteenth is in common use today around the nation, it did not appear in print coverage of June 19 ceremonies until the late 19th or early 20th Century. Decades worth of large city newspaper coverage of June 19 activities around the state through the 1890s are absent the portmanteau. While perhaps used in conversation, it was not used in print by the white press.
Additionally, for years cities in Texas that were on the soldiers’ route from Galveston celebrated their emancipation not on June 19, but on the day the soldiers reached their towns and delivered the news. Columbus and Brenham Texas are a couple of the cities on the route that celebrated the day on a subsequent days (20th, 21st, etc.) for at least a few years after emancipation. This is illustrated in lengthy Galveston Daily News article from June, 1867, which describes an emancipation day in Columbus. The dates on which the soldiers reached various towns are in a variety of monographs I’ve seen you cite before when covering Texas. Some are also covered by the late Bill Stein in some of his writings now published on the website of Nesbitt Memorial Library in Columbus.
While Emancipation days were typically celebrated on the days that Union troops reached a county or community, not only in Texas but in other states with slavery as well, and some areas celebrated Jan. 1 (the day of the Emancipation Proclamation), by the late 1800s many of these celebrations had been repressed by Jim Crow governments. My own first encounter with Juneteenth did not occur until the 1970s in Buffalo. Thanks for the additional information on this National Holiday.