I will be teaching a variety of lessons inspired by the upcoming Juneteenth Festival & Juried Art Show both in art class with our students and periodically here in this blog for the last couple of weeks of school for everyone. It is an historic event both in what it commemorates and as the first arts festival of it's kind in East Gainesville. The event encompasses the ideas of African Heritage, the arts (visual, music and performance) and culture.
Also, many of our students will be participating in the Youth Art Competition and Exhibit!
Lesson #1 - What is Juneteenth?
History (Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia)
Though the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863, it had little immediate effect on most slaves’ day-to-day lives, particularly in Texas, which was almost entirely under Confederate control. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. Legend has it while standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read the contents of “General Order No. 3”
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.[6]
That day has since become known as Juneteenth, a name derived from a portmanteau of the words June and nineteenth.
