Juneteenth’s Meaning Takes New Shape 4 Years After Federal Recognition

A new generation recasts the holiday, but it’s not the first time its significance has shifted

Sheeka Sanahori,

Updated June 19, 2025

AARP

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En español

Published June 14, 2024

/ Updated June 19, 2025

collage of people celebrating Juneteenth

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union soldiers in Galveston, Texas, announced the emancipation of enslaved people. Now celebrations take place across the U.S.

Photo Collage: AARP (Source: Getty Images(4))

I drove to Clarksdale, Mississippi, on June 18, 2021, the day after Juneteenth became a federal holiday. It was my first visit to this part of the state, but it felt like a homecoming of sorts. I knew that my ancestors had once lived in this small town famous for blues music. My family and I spent the weekend walking through historic downtown Clarksdale, stopping to admire murals of notable blues musicians and visiting Red’s Lounge, a juke joint known for birthing the town’s most inventive artists.

On Saturday, June 19, my family and I stumbled upon a cookout in the park to celebrate Freedom Day. It was my first time celebrating Juneteenth, and my first time interpreting what celebrating meant for me, as it was for several newcomers to the holiday. Awareness for what was once a grassroots celebration among Black families in Texas was spreading across the country.

Days before Juneteenth became a federal holiday, a Gallup poll reported that 37 percent of American adults said they had some or a lot of familiarity with the holiday. That average was slightly lower for people age 55 and older, at 32 percent. By the next year, the number of overall adult awareness increased to 59 percent.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union soldiers marched into Galveston, Texas, and announced the emancipation of enslaved people. Making Juneteenth a federal holiday not only increased national awareness about Emancipation Day but also opened the day up to new perceptions of its symbolic representation.

According to Donna Patterson, chair of the Department of History, Political Science and Philosophy at Delaware State University, the social justice movements that began in 2020 had a major influence in how a new generation of celebrants understood Juneteenth.

Migrations and social justice movements shift on Juneteenth

“A lot of people either learned or are still learning about Juneteenth. And what we saw in 2020 with the protests and George Floyd and all of that, a lot of the protesters, I think, took hold of Juneteenth as one of the symbols. And so it spread it out in a different way,” Patterson says.

One of those new directions, she says, was in some Black Americans’ decision to forgo July 4 celebrations in favor of Juneteenth, a concept that was not widespread among Juneteenth celebrants prior to 2020.

Patterson grew up in Texas and recalls the Juneteenth parades and educational lectures that were common in her youth. For those who were able to get time off from work, it was a day to return home to commune with friends and family.

Big celebrations centered on historic sites, such as Emancipation Park in Houston.

“Historically, certainly it is a Black Texan holiday,” Patterson says. “And a lot of people who practice Juneteenth caught it early on as it migrated out, mostly in the South, parts of Louisiana, parts of Mississippi, and other parts of the South.”

As the celebration migrated to other Southern states, then eventually to the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, regional cultural norms made their way into celebrations, even as the day maintained its focus on celebrating freedom.

As an adult, Patterson has attended Juneteenth celebrations across the country, and even outside of the U.S. In the 1990s, she attended a Juneteenth event in West Africa.

“It was an honor to see an acknowledgment of Juneteenth in Cape Coast, Ghana,” she says. An event at Cape Coast is significant in that it’s home to an outpost that held African captives before they were shipped to the Americas to be enslaved, a so-called door of no return.

“The celebration really manifested its way, I think, in a way that a celebration would look like in that part of Ghana. So we had cultural Ghanaian elements for the most part,” Patterson says.

aerial view of Emancipation Park in Houston

In 1872, four formerly enslaved people bought 10 acres of land in Houston to have a place to celebrate Juneteenth. Emancipation Park, as it is now known, is a communal place for recreation and entertainment for African Americans.

Godofredo A. Vasquez/Getty Images

From grassroots to national recognition

As executive director of the Emancipation Park Conservancy, Jennifer Spriggs helps plan the annual Juneteenth events in Houston’s Emancipation Park. Emancipation Park is intrinsically linked to the holiday; in 1872, four formerly enslaved people bought 10 acres of land so they’d have a designated place to celebrate Juneteenth. Emancipation Park in later years became a communal place for recreation and entertainment for African Americans.

“You still want it to be grounded and really community focused.”

—Jennifer Spriggs, executive director of the Emancipation Park Conservancy

Her organization believes more out-of-towners are visiting Houston and Emancipation Park since Juneteenth became a federal holiday. She also says national recognition for Juneteenth has made the park a destination for visitors year-round.

Spriggs grew up in central Texas, where she says her family always got together to celebrate Juneteenth. She hopes that as awareness of Juneteenth grows, it can keep its traditional elements.

“You still want it to be grounded and really community focused. And I think that that’s one of the hurdles that we have to overcome, now that it is a national holiday, is letting it get away from that grassroots, family, community origin.”

a Juneteenth celebration in Brooklyn, New York

People celebrate Juneteenth in Brooklyn, New York, on June 19, 2023.

Yuki IWAMURA/Getty Images

Honoring a time-honored holiday

This isn’t the first time Juneteenth celebrations have experienced a major shift. According to Angela Siner, the director of the Africana Studies program at the University of Toledo, the early celebrations from the mid-1860s through the 1880s only consisted of social festivities. Food, dance, parades and prayer services were common themes.

“As time went on into the 1890s and the early 1900s, at these Juneteenth celebrations, they started talking about voting,” Siner says. “Because now, Black people, particularly Black men, have the right to vote, so you could come to the Juneteenth celebration and learn about issues of the day.

“It wasn’t just about coming and having a good time, but also it came to be a part of where individuals were learning about things that were happening in the community.”

Those educational elements are still an intentional part of the Juneteenth offerings at Emancipation Park. This year’s events will include an educational health fair that’s free to the public, as well as field trips for students to learn about art and history with visits to museums.

For those celebrating outside of Houston, Spriggs offers this advice: “Keep it simple. Have fun with your close friends, your family. Don’t try to do too much.”

My own Juneteenth celebrations have evolved since my first commemoration in 2021. Since then, I’ve spent Juneteenth traveling to other majority-Black destinations and attending classes on ancestral gardening techniques.

Last year, I celebrated Juneteenth alongside my family’s annual reunion, another Black family tradition with activities, such as a prayer service, music and food, that Siner says are similar to the earliest Juneteenth celebrations. What was new last year: I encouraged my family to interview our family’s eldest members. I’m in my 40s, and I want to help preserve our oral history for family members to enjoy for generations to come.

No matter how Juneteenth is spent, whether with family or at a public event, the purpose stays true to celebrating freedom.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on June 14, 2024. It has been updated with new information.

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