City of Sacramento considers an official ordinance establishing a Juneteenth Holiday

Juneteenth is a Title 5 Federal Holiday, but not an official Holiday in the City of Sacramento, Capitol of the Great State of California.

Juneteenth is our the agreed upon date to celebrate the end of chattel slavery in the United States and the generational work to establish a IS Federal Holiday is slowly receiving recognition.

Juneteenth gets its name because it marks June 19, 1865, when US Union General Gordon Granger, issued his Field Order No. 3. that states:
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

The 7 week U.S. military campaign throughout Texas included several thousand United States Colored Troops, who enforced the order ending chattel slavery, sealed the Texas/Mexican border and confiscated vast quantities of the valuable cotton commodity for the US Treasury is now an essential part of the ongoing education about the significance of our US Federal Juneteenth Holiday.

City of Sacramento official recognition is a work in progress over 2 1/2 years late since the June 2021 official Juneteenth Holiday.

If City of Sacramento officially recognizes Juneteenth and considers directing allocation historical study of the impacts of Slavery in Old Sacramento, California since the April 1850 Incorporation, then Sacramentans who are unaware of the captivity and bondage during our California Gold Rush Era “chattel slavery” and the "auction of human beings" in Historic Old Sacramento and surrounding communities helps bring year round appreciation of the journey towards freedom and meaning to our Sacramento Juneteenth Holiday.

Juneteenth was always celebrated widely by Black communities in and around Texas throughout the 19th century, growing in popularity in the 20th century, and has become a more broadly celebrated official holiday in the United States.

Seasoned Juneteenth Movement elders recall “Solidarity Day” on June 19, 1968 when over 50,000 people gathered on the National Mall, Washington D.C., and built Resurrection City, a temporary settlement to protest economic inequality and demand for an “Economic Bill of Rights” as part of the prophetic vision of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated a few months earlier on April 4, 1968.

“The vast majority of Americans are only beginning to reckon with Juneteenth, the complexity and the horror of the history of slavery in the United States,” says Erica Ball, Black Studies Department chair at Occidental College in Los Angeles. “Most Americans have learned about the history of slavery from the movies. Until very recently, most mainstream Hollywood movies privileged a representation of slavery that makes it seem as if it was a gentle, kind, and benign institution. So commemorating it, kind of reckoning with it, is something that I think, in its horror, that Americans are only beginning to get used to thinking about.”

The City of Sacramento can officially commemorate Juneteenth as the recognized end of slavery, this special 175th Anniversary of the City of Sacramento.

America 250 is beginning to fully acknowledge that slavery is part of or legacy At least twelve American Presidents owned enslaved people beginning with President George Washington.

The White House, the Smithsonian, Harvard Law School and many more iconic American structures were built with enslaved human labor.

Juneteenth isn’t a day of mourning or atoning for the institution of slavery, It’s a liberation celebration for all Americans. A day to fly our US Flag along side our National Juneteenth Flag and remember our unique journey towards freedom.

Juneteenth, like Christmas is now a month-long celebration, building upon Black Music Month. Juneteenth Celebrations are festive affairs to include: parades, cookouts, education, parties, family reunions, memorials and a special new opportunity to highlight a renaissance of reconnecting to Pan African Culture through genealogy and DNA database research.

Many celebrants utilize the Pan African colors of Red, Black Green and Gold popularized by the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey during the 1920’s and built upon during our annual “California Grown” Kwanzaa Agriculture Harvest Season, established by Dr. Maulana Karenga during the 1960’s during the aftermath of the Los Angeles Watts Rebellion.

Juneteenth isn’t the only historic day that commemorates the end of slavery, all across America, before, during and after Juneteenth are special days when the news of freedom was enforced during our United States Civil War.

In 1995, Rev. John Mosley called a meeting of National Juneteenth Organizers from all across the country to meet at Christian Unity Baptist Church located at 1700 Conti Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rev. Dr. Ronald Myers, a Physician who answered the call of Fannie Lou Hamer to set up his Medical Practice deep in the woods of Mississippi, picked up the Juneteenth baton and today, Juneteenth is a Title 5 US Federal Holiday, but “not yet” an official paid holiday throughout the Great State of California.

In 2000, Folsom Juneteenth at Historic Negro Bar State Park, Sacramento County established the longest running local public celebration of our unique journey from slavery to freedom in the Sacramento region.

The Sacramento Convention Center and Visitors Bureau Office of Multiculturalism picked up the banner and spun off Sacramento Juneteenth Inc. initially working with seasoned National Juneteenth Observance Foundation leadership Dr. Trudy Coleman and John Thompson to spread the “good news.”

Together, we will fly the Juneteenth Flag in the City of Sacramento and continue educating and advocating for alignment with our Title 5 US Federal Holiday in the Capitol City Region of the Great State of California.