Today is the second official observance of Colorado’s newest state holiday – Juneteenth – and most state and local government offices will be taking the day off. The holiday was signed into law in spring 2022 by Gov. Jared Polis though its roots run much deeper.

It’s a day that is especially meaningful for Black Coloradans but should resonate with Coloradans and Americans of all races and ethnicities. That’s because it’s about freedom – a core American value that Americans of African heritage long were denied – and Juneteenth represents freedom’s restoration for Black Americans and its renewal for everyone.

Juneteenth, sometimes called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, commemorates the actual end of slavery in the United States. June 19 was the date that U.S. Civil War Major General Gordon Granger announced slaves in Texas were free in 1865. The announcement came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln had declared the end of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. Indeed, portions of Texas and two Union border states – Delaware and Kentucky – had continued holding slaves.

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The holiday’s latter-day recognition by Colorado’s state government came nearly 70 years after the first official Juneteenth celebration was held in Denver’s historic Five Points neighborhood, in 1953. Denver’s annual Juneteenth parade and music festival is one of the largest in the country. It draws around 50,000 people each year.

Juneteenth’s relatively new status as a Colorado holiday follows Congress’ designation of Juneteenth National Independence Day as a federal holiday in 2021- making it the first new federal holiday since the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Denver and Colorado Springs, among other Colorado cities, also now observe Juneteenth as an official holiday.

Our nation’s birthday on the Fourth of July is only weeks away, and yet it is important to remember that until the historic event commemorated today, Black Americans had little cause to rejoice on the Fourth. No one put it in better perspective than escaped-slave-turned-statesman Frederick Douglass.

A renowned orator, Douglass was invited to speak on July 4th in Rochester, New York, in 1852. He obliged and spoke – but declined to celebrate.

“The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common,” Douglass said. “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” Indeed.

He appealed to decency and helped bring about change. Fourteen years later the last of his country’s slaves went free after anti-slavery Americans fought and died in a war that led to emancipation. Only after the last slaves walked free was this a country that truly stood for freedom.

In that light, Juneteenth is the essential complement to the Fourth of July. The end of slavery not only broke the chains of its victims, at last, but also ended a curse on all Americans – and freed every American ever after.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board