In the Birthplace of Juneteenth, I Learned the Value of the Holiday

The Annual Commemoration of Slavery’s End Should Be Celebrated Far Beyond Its Texas Island Roots

When my husband and I moved to Galveston, an island city on the Gulf Coast of Texas, in 1991, I was exhausted by racial hatred and violence, and Juneteenth was not a holiday I celebrated. I did not know it at the time, but those two facts would soon become deeply intertwined. Growing up in the Northeast, I’d never heard of Juneteenth. Even later, after I learned of this holiday’s importance as the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, I didn’t observe it particularly.

Galveston …