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Events Before Juneteenth That Are Worthy of Recognition
Right before Juneteenth was made a federal holiday last year, a Forbes columnist wrote, “On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were free, thus establishing the basis for the holiday known as Juneteenth. Many people have taken to Twitter to express frustration that they didn’t learn about Juneteenth in school.”
One frustrated person tweeted that black history is severely lacking in public schools, and Juneteenth needs to be taught.
The fact that previous history courses neglected to cover Juneteenth is not an indication that black history is lacking in public education. Since the 1970s, history curriculums have undergone massive transformations and become more multicultural with each passing decade.
The initial rhetorical question — Why didn’t we learn this in school? — wants us to assume there was a concerted effort to suppress the significance of Juneteenth. Since the entire past can’t be recorded in textbooks, events that shaped or altered the trajectory of the nation take precedence over popular events that remained in the collective or cultural memory. The real question is: Did the actual event on June 19, 1865, shape or alter the nation, or was the date remembered for what it represented?