Thursday,18th June 2020, the National Archives discovered an original handwritten “Juneteenth” military order proclaiming the freedom of African American who were enslave in Texas
This Juneteenth decree, was drafted in the handwriting of a general’s aide, found in a formal order book stored in the Archives headquarters building in Washington, dated since June 19, 1865, and signed by Maj. F.W. Emery, on behalf of the Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger.
The Texans were informed that, in accordance with the proclamation from the Executive of the United States, ‘all slaves are free,’ ” which clearly reads;
“This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves and the connection therefore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.” which was a great celebration among African American all over.
Just at perfect as the recent happenings this past month where people take to the street in protest to the killing of African Americans, shines even brighter light to the Juneteenth issue.
And in just two paragraph it labels “Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston … General Orders No. 3.”
This proclamation affected the life of over 250,000 African American slaves changing their life drastically.
This order was located by the director of the archives of textual record division called Trevor Plante, whom because of current interest in the subject, was asked to search for it .
He said . “But this is something that we haven’t tracked down before and he said that the handwritten entry “absolutely” predated the printed versions of the order.which was done June 19, 1865.
“It’s in good shape,” he said. “You can read it, and it’s legible.”
David Ferriero, Head of the Archives says; I think it’s terrific. I think the timing is just amazing.” This is because the month of June is very important in black history and with the current occurrence of events, if Juneteenth is considered and proclaim a paid public holiday, it will shine even greater light on black history(black lives) Because this was the very first step, in the very same month where countless of slaves in Texas, were set free marking the beginning of the freedom movement for African Americans.
