On June 17, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo issued an Executive Order recognizing Juneteenth (June 19) as a holiday for New York state employees, and declared an attention to advance legislation for it to become an official state holiday by 2021.
So, this year Juneteenth is a thing but not one that would have been on the radar for most marketers early enough to plan campaigns around it. I predict that by next year we will see a lot more campaigns for it, and it will gather stream like other days of the year. It might even be added as a marketing occasion, as we’ve seen for Galantine’s Day, for instance.
Of course, Juneteenth has much older roots, as recounted here:
Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.
The celebration of the day, though, waxed and waned, drooped in the 1900s and then revitalized in the middle with the rise of the Civil Rights movement. Interestingly, Texas was a full 40 years ahead of New York with respect to Al Edwards, former state rep, who just died this past April. He got the bill passed that granted Juneteenth state recognition and made it a state holiday.
While the pandemic limits celebrations and gatherings, as mentioned in the announcement about events in its original base of Texas, there are some events planned centered on local communities. Here’s a listing for events in New York and one for Chicago.