Juneteenth

BlackPast is an online reference center is dedicated to providing information to the general public on African American history and the history of more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world.

Interactive site that allows you to explore and learn more about Juneteenth.

The emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S. took place over a protracted period. The articles in this curated list dig into the complicated history.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA). At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited transcripts was assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. In 2000-2001, with major support from the Citigroup Foundation, the Library digitized the narratives from the microfilm edition and scanned from the originals 500 photographs, including more than 200 that had never been microfilmed or made publicly available. This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs divisions of the Library of Congress.

Juneteenth is a time to gather as a family, reflect on the past and look to the future. Discover ways to celebrate this African American cultural tradition of music, food and freedom with the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The National Museum of African American History and Culure's Searchable Museum is a place to explore history and culture through an African American lens.

Extensive collection of essays, poetry, photos and more from the New York Times.

The #SchomburgSyllabus is an archive of new and recent educational resources relating to Black studies, movements, and experiences. By connecting these materials to the Schomburg Center’s collections, we honor and recognize the source and strength of Black self-education practices, collective study, and librarianship. The #SchomburgSyllabus is curated by Schomburg Center staff and organized into 27 themes to foster a greater understanding of the Black experience.

Digital Schomburg provides access to trusted information, interpretation, and scholarship on the global Black experience through online materials at the Schomburg Center created and curated by our staff and librarians. Visitors can locate online articles, digital exhibitions, photographs, audio and video streams, historical projects, and external links for research in the history and cultures of the peoples of Africa and the African Diaspora.

The Archives holds a wealth of material documenting the Black experience. This page highlights these resources online, in programs, and through traditional and social media.

Explore films and interviews such as The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, John Lewis: Good Trouble, and more.

Historian Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott lectures on the history of Juneteenth at the Allen Public Library.

In 2016, at the age of 89, former teacher and lifelong activist Opal Lee walked 1,400 miles from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., in an effort to get Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday. Two years later, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution recognizing the holiday, which originated in Galveston, Texas, and honors the June 19 anniversary of the announcement by Union Army general Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas. Though the day is now celebrated annually throughout the United States, Ms. Opal does not consider her work complete: “We have simply got to make people aware that none of us are free until we’re all free, and we aren’t free yet,” she told the New York Times last June. Please join us for a webinar discussion with Ms. Opal that centers the history of Juneteenth in her life and focuses on her personal journey to establish Juneteenth as a national holiday. Ms. Opal will be joined by Harvard University professors Evelyn Hammonds and Annette Gordon-Reed; Gordon-Reed is also the author on the new book, On Juneteenth. Presented with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Research Science Association.

The recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-two interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement. It is important to note that all of the interviewees spoke sixty or more years after the end of their enslavement, and it is their full lives that are reflected in these recordings. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.

A panel of scholars will be invited to explore the origins of Juneteenth through the lens of federal vs states' rights and discuss the historical and current political significance of the holiday. Panelists: Jelani Cobb, Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University; Imani Perry, Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University; Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University and Kevin Young, Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture who will moderate.