Juneteenth has been a part of my family tradition for as long as anyone can remember.
It marks the day in 1865 — June 19 — when some of the last enslaved people in the United States, in Texas, learned that they had been freed, roughly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
My mother recalls going to large Juneteenth celebrations as a child in the 1950s, where some men would play baseball and others would play guitars and harps, where women would arrive with their own picnic spreads of fried chicken and fresh baked rolls and her great-uncle would barbecue a goat.
She told me recently that she would just be excited to have a “nice blouse and a gathered skirt that was starched and ironed, and socks and sandals.” Those skirts would often be made from the cloth of feed sacks. “That was our dress-up day,” she said.
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