Juneteenth is now federally recognized as an official holiday in the US, the first new federal holiday recognized since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the 1980s. The day has been remembered and celebrated in black communities for well over 150 years, commemorating the end of slavery, and officially turning a page on this terrible history in the United States.
Below are a collection of images showcasing a range of celebrations of the Juneteenth holiday, dating back to the 1880s, right up to today. Via Vox, Washington Post, NPR, and The Smithsonian.
“I hated slavery, always, and the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze, to fan it into a blaze, at any moment. … I longed to have a future — a future with hope in it.”— Frederick Douglass, “My Bondage and My Freedom,” 1855
