Gettysburg needs a big Juneteenth celebration
August 2024
By Ross Hetrick
This year there was no community celebration of Juneteenth in Gettysburg, which was a crying shame. To prevent that from happening again, there will be an organizing meeting for next year's Juneteenth on September 17 at the Gettysburg YWCA at 10 a.m.
As everybody should know, Juneteenth is the national holiday on June 19 when we celebrate one of the greatest landmarks in human history -- the destruction of slavery in the United States. The holiday commemorates when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. The date was celebrated locally around the country for over a hundred years and in 2021 it was declared a federal paid holiday with President Joe Biden signing the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.
It was celebrated in Gettysburg for a few years after it became a federal holiday, but that stopped in 2024 after the organizer left the area. We can not let that happen again in 2025. Gettysburg should be the epicenter of Juneteenth celebrations since this was the turning point in the war that ended slavery in the United States. Gettysburg is also the site of Lincoln's immortal speech where he proclaimed that "this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." And of course, Gettysburg is closely associated with Thaddeus Steven, a critical player in the legislative destruction of slavery.
There are a multitude of organizations and sites in the area that commemorate the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. These include the historic African-American Lincoln cemetery, the Gettysburg Black History Museum, the Gettysburg National Military Park, the Adams County Historical Society Museum, the Lincoln Fellowship and the Thaddeus Stevens Society to name a few.
Perhaps we could have a Juneteenth festival at the Gettysburg Recreation Park or other open space where groups associated with the Civil War and Black heritage can set up information booths and skits can be performed highlighting such topics as the Underground Railroad and Black soldiers in the Union army. If you are interested in attending the September 17 meeting, please email info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com
The importance of destroying slavery in America 160 years ago can not be underestimated. Slavery had been been an accepted institution for thousands of years and it took a bloody and monumental effort to end it in the U.S. Thaddeus Stevens summed it up best when he said early in the Civil War that to wipe out this "most hateful and infernal blot" in human history would be "to write a page in the history of the world whose brightness shall eclipse all the records of heroes and of sages."
Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/.
