Friday, June 17, 2022

Commemorating Juneteenth 2022 in Austin, Texas

According to Tribeza, there are 8 Ways to Celebrate Juneteenth in AustinJuneteenth became a federal holiday when President Joe Biden signed it into law on June 17, 2021 under the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.

It had nevertheless been celebrated annually on June 19th in Texas and throughout different parts of the country since 1866. It commemorates the moment in 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger landed with his troops on Galveston Island, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation enacted by the federal government two years earlier on January 1, 1863. It was at this point that Texas' pro-slavery laws got nullified. 

As you can read from this earlier post, it gets celebrated in Mexico, too, as a key destination for the Underground Railroad. In this vein, also read this pertinent piece published by National Endowment for the Humanities authored by Martin Kohn titled, "South to Freedom: The Underground Railroad also led to Mexico."

Also, as previously posted, on Saturday, June 25th at 3 pm, a task force consisting of the Save Palm School AllianceLa Raza RoundtableTejano Genealogy Society of AustinAcademia Cuauhtli, and Martha Cotera are hosting Dr. Maria Hammack who is delivering a presentation at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center based on her doctoral dissertation research on the Texas underground railroad. Her presentation is titled, "Luchas y Libertad (Struggle and Liberty): Slavery and Freedom, Central Texas and the Borderlands."

The piece below in The New Yorker on gifted artist Elizabeth Colomba honors Juneteenth by featuring her as an artist who paints "Black bodies into historically white spaces." As you can read yourself from her Wikipedia entry, she creatively addresses the erasures of Black women in 19th century art history. 

Happy Juneteenth, everybody!

-Angela Valenzuela

#Juneteenth #blacklivesmatter #BLM #ATX

Elizabeth Colomba’s “157 Years of Juneteenth”

The artist discusses Harlem and the necessity of painting Black bodies into historically white spaces.


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