Juneteenth continues to grow in the City of Folsom, it's time for an official paid holiday

The City of Folsom is named after US Army Captain Joseph Folsom. Juneteenth represents a major American milestone, ending chattel slavery in American and preserving the Union in the closing days of our bloody US Civil War.

On June 19, 1865, freedom finally reached Port Galveston Island, Texas where thousands of Union troops, including United States Colored Troops arrived and began a 7-week campaign of enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, signed more than two years earlier, however the bloody US Civil War was fought to end slavery in America.

That momentous occasion, now known as Juneteenth, represents the enforcement of emancipation and the beginning of a new chapter in American history. Today, Juneteenth is celebrated nationwide, here in the City of Folsom, we request alignment for a paid holiday for reflection, education, and community celebrations.

The story chattel slavery in America and the long, difficult road to Juneteenth Freedom begins long before the end of the US Civil War in 1865. In the bloody summer of 1862, the Civil War was at a turning point. Confederate forces had won a series of victories, and President Abraham Lincoln recognized that weakening the institution of slavery would strike at the heart of the Southern war effort. He drafted a proclamation that would free enslaved people in the rebelling states, but he needed a Union victory to ensure public support.

That opportunity came in September, when Union forces halted a Confederate invasion at Antietam, Maryland. Soon after, Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation a 90-day warning to the Confederacy: return to the Union by January 1, 1863, or slavery in those states would end. This shifted the purpose of the war from simply restoring the Union to ending slavery.

Noon, January, 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring enslaved people in Confederate‑held territory “forever free.”

The proclamation did not free enslaved people immediately, but it transformed the war. over 200,000 Black men, many self-emancipated, joined the U.S. Army and Navy, fighting not only to preserve the Union but to secure liberty for those still in bondage.

Their service helped turn the tide of the war and carried the promise of freedom deeper into the South and Mexico. Yet in places like Texas, the proclamation had almost no effect. During the war, slaveholders fled to Texas to escape advancing Union forces, bringing enslaved people with them.

The enslaved population in Texas grew from about 1,000 in the Galveston–Houston region in 1860 to more than 250,000 statewide by 1865. Texas was geographically isolated, and communication was slow. Many enslavers simply refused to share news of emancipation. Some accounts suggest a messenger carrying the news was killed; others believe enslavers withheld the information to maintain forced labor. Still others speculate that federal troops waited until after the cotton harvest to confiscate the lucrative cash crop.

Even after the Civil War effectively ended in April 1865, with the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox, Virgina. Most Texans did not learn of it until May 1865. Then, on June 18, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with federal troops to enforce emancipation. The next day, standing on the balcony of Ashton Villa, he issued General Order No. 3, declaring that all enslaved people were free and that former masters and enslaved people now stood in “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property.”

The response was immediate and joyous. Newly freed men, women, and children took to the streets in celebration and considered what “freedom” would look like. It was a dangerous and difficult time where many died of disease and murder.

By the following year, 1866, organized Juneteenth gatherings were held across Texas. Racial segregation barred Black communities from public parks, they raised funds to purchase their own land, establishing places such as Houston’s Emancipation Park, Mexia’s Booker T. Washington Park, and Austin’s Emancipation Park. These celebrations continued despite obstacles, including employers refusing to grant time off.

Between the 1940s and 1970s, more than five million Black Americans left Texas and the Deep South during the Great Migration, bringing Juneteenth traditions with them to California and the West Coast. By the late 20th century, Juneteenth had become a national cultural observance. Texas recognized it as a state holiday in 1980, and in 2021, Juneteenth became a fixed Title 5 U.S. federal holiday.

Today, Juneteenth is celebrated across the country, beginning in 1998 the City of Folsom held its first public celebration at then Negro Bar State Park, (today's Black Miner's Bar) highlighted by official recognition of the California Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, hosted by CSUS Professor Dr. Shirley Moore and her late husband Mr. Joe Moore.

Juneteenth is more than a date on the calendar. It is a reminder that freedom, once declared, must also be delivered—and that the work of building a more just and inclusive society continues. As the City of Folsom considers an official paid Juneteenth Holiday joining communities across the nation in honoring this day, we recognize both the history behind it and the shared responsibility it represents for all Americans.