Juneteenth is a world wide celebration of the end of slavery in the United States following the Union's victory over the Confederacy. The celebration of Juneteenth takes place largely within African-American communities, although awareness of the celebration is growing throughout the United States and around the world. Juneteenth is celebrated in certain cultures and subcultures for either a day, a week, or a whole month.[1] Historically, Juneteenth celebrations take place on June 19th, because June 19t, 1865 was the day when word reached the last slaves in Texas that the Union had won the war and they were free. Today, Juneteenth celebrations are undergoing revitalization and contemporary transformations as organizations reawaken parents and grandparents to their memories of their childhood Juneteenth celebrations. Despite the expanded awareness of Juneteenth in recent decades, much work must be done in the name of African American civil rights in the United States. Not only civil rights; now more than ever human rights are being ignored and/or conflated in a wash of terms that includes words like liberty, security, and freedom being tactlessly jumbled around. Therefore, in the future the issues of civil rights and human rights ought to be part of the discussion around Juneteenth. Juneteenth celebrations need to retain an emphasis on critical thinking, examining and reflecting on ones own rights, and standing up ones rights, sometimes preemptively (i.e. before the right is violated by either legitimate (in the courts) or illegitimate (racist) ways). By extending Juneteenth to make it the 'Critical Thinking' holiday, a resurgence of critical thinking philosophy may inspire more Americans to really start thinking about freedom and how to guarantee it for humanity.
When slaves in Texas found out about their freedom on June 19th 1865, over two and a half years had passed since Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation...