Mission

Our mission at National Juneteenth Day is two-fold; to make Juneteenth Day a day of celebration similar to St Patricks Day or Cinco de Mayo, where restaurants bars and other retail outlets welcome consumers with open arms in celebration. The second half of our mission is to continue to petition congress to make Juneteenth Day a nationally observed holiday for the emancipation of African Slaves.

We seek to do this by creating a database of businesses that support what we are trying to accomplish, and using our numbers to alert congressmen and women to the fact that our movement is nationwide.

National Juneteenth Team

Help Us Celebrate

What we want your business to do is to create a meal special if you are a restaurant, a cocktail or drink special along with a food special if you own a bar and/or grill. It doesn’t have to be very elaborate, just something that indicates that you support National Juneteenth Day and our mission to turn Juneteenth into a day where we support each others businesses and celebrate our common history! 

History

The day of June 19th, 1865 was the day that every slave held in captivity in this country knew that they were no longer slaves, even though President Lincoln had signed into law that ALL slaves in the US were to be free men on Jan 1st, 1863, roughly two and a half years earlier. Due to the lack of infrastructure and the remoteness of some areas the news didn’t arrive for a while, and that became the day we call Juneteenth.

The month of June combined with the 19th, the day that the news arrived. Immediately afterwards multiple celebrations arose but over time they all diminished, but have been resurgent over the past decade. Most of these celebrations are family orientated and are usually in remembrance, so you see a lot of festivals, cookouts, and somber speeches taking place. As of today 45 states recognize Juneteenth Day as a state holiday, or day of observance but it still hasn’t been recognized as a national holiday yet.

There are a few organizations that are trying to get it to be designated as a national day of observance, so we know that it will come soon.