Civil War, Emancipation and Juneteenth

On the eve of the Civil War, enslaved people in Texas made up 30 percent of the state's population, and their numbers grew as slaveholders fleeing fighting elsewhere in the Confederacy brought more than 30,000 enslaved people into Texas during the war years alone. The conflict did not readily change the Black experience in Texas, as most African-Americans remained in bondage and were forced to labor. After federal troops occupied Texas in June 1865, General Gordon Granger issued General Order Number 3 at Galveston on June 19, 1865, enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation signed earlier by President Abraham Lincoln. That day became known as Juneteenth or Emancipation Day, though many enslaved people in Texas were not freed until later. Officially declared a Texas state holiday in 1980, Juneteenth continues to be celebrated in Texas and other states as a milestone in the African-American struggle for freedom. After emancipation, former slaves entered freedom with joy, despair, elation, fear, hope, doubt, certainty, and confusion, seeking to build lives with little social infrastructure beyond their families in a nation and state they had helped create but in which they held very little ownership, input, or power.

Austin, Texas · United States