Government Documents - Federal: Juneteenth

Juneteenth

Next week we observe Juneteenth. The main page New Mexico Office of African American Affairs includes a Community Corner with events taking place in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and other locations. This office also has a Data Hub with information on demographics, health, education and economics of New Mexico’s African American community. (Image: Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900 held in "East Woods" on East 24th Street in Austin. Credit: Austin History Center.)

Other resources:

New Mexico History

• What is Juneteenth?
• Albuquerque’s First African-American Neighborhood
• African-American Experience in Southern New Mexico
• New Mexico’s Black History Runs Deep
• National Park Service Blackdom New Mexico
  “Blackdom, New Mexico was the most important black homesteader colony in New Mexico. Blackdom was located fifteen miles south of Roswell. The town was incorporated in 1903 by thirteen African Americans. This group formed the Blackdom Townsite Company with $10,000 in combined assets. The group named Frank Boyer as their president.”

Image: Loney K. Wagoner standing with three daughters of Joseph and Harriet Smith and an unknown man, all Blackdom residents and homesteaders near Cottonwood, New Mexico. National Park Service

General History

• Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom, National Park Service 
• The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth, Smithsonian 
  "Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.
  But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as "Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas." 

• The official handwritten record of General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. It is now preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

• Check out the Smithsonian’s Juneteenth website to learn more about the history of Juneteenth, share your Juneteenth story, and find activities for children and youth.