12 Quotes About Freedom to Celebrate Juneteenth
Though Juneteenth has been celebrated nationwide for more than 150 years, many non-Black Americans were largely unfamiliar with its origins until recently. The holiday, otherwise known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, is an annual commemoration of June 19, 1865, the day that General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform its citizens that all enslaved people were officially free.
General Granger read aloud General Order Number 3, which stated, in part: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.”
The message arrived nearly two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863; Texas was the most remote of the slave states, and therefore the last to receive word. The name for the holiday is a portmanteau of the words “June” and “nineteenth,” and every year since that fateful June day in 1865, folks have celebrated with park gatherings, street fairs, parades, and even Miss Juneteenth competitions. In 1872, a group of Black ministers and businessmen in Houston purchased 10 acres of land to create what is now known as Emancipation Park, where they hoped annual Juneteenth celebrations would take place for generations to come.
In 2020, Juneteenth received unprecedented media coverage in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. The calls to make Juneteenth a national holiday grew louder as more Americans became aware of this critical but oft-overlooked celebration. Since then, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) has been leading the charge to try to make Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday. “I think Juneteenth tells a wonderful story,” Jackson Lee said. “It’s a story of freedom. It happened two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, but it still set a pathway of freedom. Who are we as a nation, if you’re frightened about freedom and liberation and joy?”
In honor of Juneteenth and the folks who have continued to preserve its spirit, here are 12 quotes about freedom that speak to the importance of remembering the past in order to push for a more equitable future.
Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. 
