I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

Two and a half years prior to June 19, 1865, the slaves had been emancipated.  However, it took from 1863 to 1865 with the surrender of General Lee for the federal army to have enough troops to force Texas to comply.

I look at it like, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776.  However, the wording of the declaration wasn't completely finalized until the 4th.  So, did the Document matter more than the Declaration?  Looks like someone decided it did.

Which was more important:  the PROCLAMATION that emancipated the slaves, or the final implementation of that executive order?  Since Juneteenth is considered the oldest nationally celebrated holiday in the nation, I think that tradition speaks for itself. 

As for why it's not a big event in today's society, it's partially due to the fact that we already dedicated a holiday to Lincoln, and those who were impacted by the events of 1865 in Texas have long since departed.

I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

#metoo

I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

#metoo

Me three.  And I'm 63. 

I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

I too am in my Mid 60's
I grew up in SE Los Angeles county.
I payed more attention to Cinco De Mayo.
Another "fake Holiday" than any holiday that
involved Blacks.
I think it is fair to say I'm far more comfortable with Mexican and south
American cultures than I am with Compton culture.
I lived across the river from Compton.
In fact I'm comfortable with just about every culture except Compton culture
and Democrat( Liberal Karen) culture.

As an aside -
Interesting so many of us here are Older

The reason why I brought this up was because the national news outlets and late night talk shows try to give people the impression that the whole country has been throwing jubilant parties and calling it a great American holiday that has been going on every June 19th for the past 100 years.

The rhetoric was telling people that if you don't throw a block party and have party balloons on June 19th, then that makes you a racist....shame on you.

Well, if black folk want to declare June 19th a holiday, then I say we should start a campaign to make November 21st a national holiday also.
Does anyone know why 11/21 is a significant day for freedom loving Americans?

Never heard of it before this past week. Now I’m hearing so many local people, particularly radio “personalities”, calling for it to be a national holiday.

Then people calling for tattoo shops to offer free coverups for tats that could even be remotely considered racist.

All this makes me 

The reason why I brought this up was because the national news outlets and late night talk shows try to give people the impression that the whole country has been throwing jubilant parties and calling it a great American holiday that has been going on every June 19th for the past 100 years.

The rhetoric was telling people that if you don't throw a block party and have party balloons on June 19th, then that makes you a racist....shame on you.

Well, if black folk want to declare June 19th a holiday, then I say we should start a campaign to make November 21st a national holiday also.
Does anyone know why 11/21 is a significant day for freedom loving Americans?

If they added "in many Black families and communities" to the end of "the whole country has been throwing jubilant parties and calling it a great American holiday that has been going on every June 19th for the past 100 years," they'd be more accurate.

A celebration doesn't require a huge sale at Sears or Walmart, nor does it require "film at 11" coverage to be nationwide.  This holiday was never able to be commercialized like Cinco de Mayo and Mother's Day, so they get little to no attention.  Only now that it coincides with pandering to the BLM protests in the news does it garner any attention at all.

Most people today don't celebrate the end of slavery, because the ones who should are busy using slavery still to rationalize their current socioeconomic situation.  How can the radicals celebrate the end of slavery when they have been taught in school and at home that they are still victims of said slavery?

To admit slavery ended in 1865 or earlier is to beg the question, "How is that still a factor in today's generations?  Didn't we just see the first Black President?"  What more does it take to show that the country is a land of opportunity for everyone, and that the systemic racism claims are BS?

To more directly answer the OP's question, YES, I've heard of it before.  But, I'm a curious information junkie.  When I see something I'm not familiar with, I go look it up.  My earliest recollection of it was in High School in the late 70s.  I grew up in NC, where the Black population was probably much higher than the majority of the country.  My first assignment in the Air Force was in Oklahoma 1984-1989.  You'd have been hard pressed to see an actual Black person there who wasn't part of the military -- moved there involuntarily.  Native Americans were the oppressed people there, so I guess two groups would have created competition?  I don't know.

The WorldWideWeb is my best resource and worst curse.  I used to have to go to an encyclopedia to find the 411 on something I wanted to learn about.  Now, I have instant access to millions of times more information -- most of it accurate and useful.  The rest of it is a quagmire that wastes as much time as, if not more than, this technology saves.

I'm going to be 59 before Christmas this year if CV-19 doesn't get me first!   

How come barry never mentioned it?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

How come barry never mentioned it?

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

He did.

Yesterday ......   

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/503595-obama-marks-juneteenth-a-celebration-of-progress

Seriously though, he put out statements in the past while in office.  Those statements look like the standard administrative crap that a staffer wrote and the CoS approved for release.  Obama probably saw it on a calendar before leaving the office to play golf.  Apparently the media did not jump on it because they were too busy covering the fights over the budget, the housing collapse, Middle East wars, GITMO, ....

His family were never US-owned or traded as slaves AFAIK.  I imagine his father's family was helping sell slaves to the colonials, but I'm just guessing.     His African family remained in their country while his white family had little to no chance of becoming actual slaves.

Ancestry.com said that Obama's mother MAY have descended from an African slave in 17th century colonial Virginia.  Given the almost complete lack of records to back that up, the DNA match going back the 17 century is only as good as the documentation that backs it up.  I doubt there are DNA samples on file of that person anywhere to be found unless someone marked a grave that can be corroborated.  All I'm saying is it's 99% unlikely that the analysis done by Ancestry.com is correct, given that it's probably based on others in her family tree entering information on that website they found, read or heard over their lifetimes -- and may not be remembering properly.  Hell, even Obama himself could have entered that data to make it look like Ancestry.com was the source!  Look at Fauxcahontas.  If we went off the things she said her family told her, she'd be demanding Trump give her his Manhattan properties as reparations for "her people".   

It was once reported a number of Black voters wondered if Obama was "Black enough" when he began his 2008 campaign.  Part of that falls under the fact that he was born (?) and raised in Hawaii.  He's the FIRST and thus far ONLY President in US history to have been born outside of the contiguous 48 states.  George Washington was born in Virginia, in case anyone was wondering.  That makes Obama an outsider when you consider his heritage, life experience and culture.

l think those poor people who were struggling and voted for Obama got a huge wakeup call when he didn't do anything to "pay their mortgage" or make their lives better.  Black Votes Matter.

I asked a friend who grew up in the South and he knew about the holiday. Didn't ask him how it was celebrated though.

I asked a friend who grew up in the South and he knew about the holiday. Didn't ask him how it was celebrated though.

....
It's a holiday?
I googled holidays and it's not a federal holiday.
I googled state holidays and found only 1 state that lists June 19 as a holiday.
Texas.

Apparently it's not as significant as some people make it out to be.

....
It's a holiday?
I googled holidays and it's not a federal holiday.
I googled state holidays and found only 1 state that lists June 19 as a holiday.
Texas.

Apparently it's not as significant as some people make it out to be.

In the late 1970s, the Texas Legislature declared Juneteenth a "holiday of significance [...] particularly to the blacks of Texas".[22] It was the first state to establish Juneteenth as a state holiday under legislation introduced by freshman Democratic state representative Al Edwards.[32] The law passed through the Texas Legislature in 1979 and was officially made a state holiday on January 1, 1980.[19] Juneteenth is a "partial staffing" holiday in Texas; government offices do not close but agencies may operate with reduced staff, and employees may either celebrate this holiday or substitute it with one of four "optional holidays" recognized by Texas.[33] In the late 1980s, there were major celebrations of Juneteenth in California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.[16]

In 1996, the first legislation to recognize "Juneteenth Independence Day" was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 195, sponsored by Barbara-Rose Collins (D-MI). In 1997 Congress recognized the day through Senate Joint Resolution 11 and House Joint Resolution 56. In 2013, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Resolution 175, acknowledging Lula Briggs Galloway (late president of the National Association of Juneteenth Lineage) who "successfully worked to bring national recognition to Juneteenth Independence Day", and the continued leadership of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.[34]

Activists are pushing Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday.[35] Organizations such as the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation are seeking a Congressional designation of Juneteenth as a national day of observance.[14]

In 2020, state governors of Virginia and New York signed an executive order recognizing Juneteenth as a paid day of leave for state employees.[36][37]

Since the 1980s and 1990s, the holiday has been more widely celebrated among African-American communities and has seen increasing mainstream attention in the US.[24][38] In 1991, there was an exhibition by the Anacostia Museum (part of the Smithsonian Institution) called “Juneteenth ’91, Freedom Revisited”.[29] In 1994, a group of community leaders gathered at Christian Unity Baptist Church in New Orleans to work for greater national celebration of Juneteenth.[24][38] Expatriates have celebrated it in cities abroad, such as Paris.[39] Some US military bases in other countries sponsor celebrations, in addition to those of private groups.[39][40] In 1999, Ralph Ellison's novel Juneteenth was published, increasing recognition of the holiday.[41] By 2006, at least 200 cities celebrated the day.[29]

The holiday has gained mainstream awareness outside African-American communities through depictions in entertainment media, such as episodes of TV series Atlanta (2016)[42] and Black-ish (2017),[43] the latter of which featured musical numbers about the holiday by Aloe Blacc, The Roots,[44] and Fonzworth Bentley.[45][46] In 2018 Apple added Juneteenth to its calendars in iOS under official US holidays.[47] In 2020, several American corporations and educational institutions including Twitter, the National Football League, Nike, announced that they would treat Juneteenth as a company holiday, providing a paid day off to their workers,[48] and Google Calendar added Juneteenth to its US Holidays calendar.[49] Also in 2020, a number of major universities formally recognized Juneteenth,[50][51] either as a "day of reflection" or as a university holiday with paid time off for faculty and staff.[51]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth#:~:text=Juneteenth%20(a%20portmanteau%20of%20June,enslaved%20in%20the%20United%20States.

I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

I had to look it up because I have not heard of this until this year. I got some fake news from the first website I looked it up on. 

So at some time THIS year (2020) somebody went into Wikipedia and added information about juneteenth.
Fair enough. That's what Wikipedia is designed to do.

That just illustrates that prior to this year, most people of this country had no idea what it was.
Here is my theory...
The Wikipedia edit is an attempt to legitimize the protests and riots and BLM rhetoric.
My theory may be wrong, but it makes sense to me.

My opinion....
Should juneteenth be declared a national holiday? Nope.
Not if the sole purpose is to celebrate black injustice.
That would be discrimination. Black folks aren't the only victims of racial discrimination and injustice.

This is why I asked if anyone knew the significance of November 21.
FYI, November 21 is supposedly the date that Americans of Japanese ancestry were released from imprisonment at the Manzanar internment camps.
 I don't recall seeing angry mobs of Japanese protesters marching.
I don't recall seeing angry mobs of native-american Indians protesting the loss of their lands.
I don't recall seeing angry mobs of Hawaiians protesting ....oh wait never mind

Perhaps a national holiday to commemorate all flavors of racial injustice is in order.
Hey wait a minute somebody already did that.  It's called MLK day.
And the range does open on that day too.

June 2021calendar from DAV
Disabled American veterans
No juneteenth holiday.

I am in my mid 60's. Grew up on Maui.
I never heard of juneteenth before.
Am I the only one?

No, from the liberal media buzz i am fainlly aware of, it is some negro made up thing like Kazoo, or whatever that is.

This topic reminds me of the same thing I noticed with Kwanzaa.  As far as I see, it didn't even exist until 1966!

If I were a conspiracy nut, I'd be leaning toward both of these "holidays" being promoted by the SJW academics, greeting card companies and retailers.   

Yay, capitalism!   

This topic reminds me of the same thing I noticed with Kwanzaa.  As far as I see, it didn't even exist until 1966!

That is the one I was trying to recall!

Apparently only celebrated by white, female elementary school teachers.