While Osceola County celebrates the “new” Juneteenth holiday this weekend, with events in Kissimmee and St. Cloud, it is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers, led by Maj. General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all enslaved people were now free. While President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which had freed slaves in the Confederacy, over two and a half years earlier in January 1863, many enslaved people did not learn of their freedom until they were liberated by the Union Army, or only when the Civil War ended.
On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. The action came too late to fully implement the holiday last year, so this year, Monday, June 20, is the first full observance of the holiday. All 50 states have also passed legislation to recognize the new federal holiday.
Osceola County Branch 5121 NAACP is hosting Kissimmee’s Juneteenth Festival on Saturday at Kissimmee Lakefront Park from 12-5 p.m. The event is billed as a celebration of African-American culture with live music from the 69 Boys, 95 South and the Franchise Players, food, a Kids Zone, and approximately 40 vendors expected.
“Our community has been celebrating Juneteenth for the last seven years or so,” said Deloris McMillon, President of the Osceola Branch 5121, noting past celebrations at sites such as Kissimmee’s Chambers Park even though the federal holiday designation is something new. “We have also received proclamations from the City of Kissimmee and Osceola County for Juneteenth each year over the last five years”, she said.
The county extended such a proclamation at its June 6 meeting.
“We thank the commissioners for recognizing Juneteenth,” McMillon said.
The Lakefront location has been in use for the last five years. The City of Kissimmee and the Kissimmee Utility Authority are among the event sponsors.
The City of St. Cloud is celebrating Juneteenth by hosting a “Movie in the Park” event at Hopkins Park, on Saturday, June 18th at 7:30 p.m. The Marvel hit “Black Panther” will be shown.
Prior to the enactment of the Juneteenth holiday, Emancipation Day has been celebrated over the years in several North Florida communities. On May 20, 1865, one month before Granger made it to Galveston, Union Brigadier Gen. Edward M. McCook stopped in Tallahassee to make a similar announcement. Down the street from the state capitol at the Hagner House (today the Knott House Museum), McCook declared that all Black people were now free citizens of the United States.
Because June 19, 2022, falls on a Sunday, federal workers will have the day off on Monday, June 20. The Post Office and other Federal offices will be closed that day for the observance of the new holiday, as will city and county administration offices, including libraries and the Bass Road Resource Recycle Center. In unincorporated Osceola County, curbside collection (garbage and recycling) will continue as scheduled.
