Reviewing this collection of Juneteenth quotes, captions, and FAQs is an excellent way to begin your celebration of Juneteenth.
Every year on June 19, as a nation, we celebrate Juneteenth. The name is a combination of June and the date of the 19th.
This holiday celebrates the day enslaved people were told in Texas about the Emancipation Proclamation. Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Celebration Day, and Emancipation Day are other names for the holiday.
Why do We Celebrate Juneteenth Day?
The Emancipation Proclamation became law on January 1, 1863, and was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. However, it was not announced to enslaved people in Texas until June 19, 1865.
In Galveston, Texas, Major General Gordon Granger informed many enslaved people that they were now free. For most, it was the first that they learned of their freedom. Two and a half years after the Proclamation was signed. It was a reason to celebrate.
Juneteenth Quotes
These quotes reflect feelings on the holiday, the evil of slavery, and the joy of freedom: Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
Abraham Lincoln
In many ways, the rise of the state was the descent of the world from freedom to slavery.
Marvin Harris
What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.
Ayn Rand
John Brown’s zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light; his was as the burning sun. I could live for the slave; John Brown could die for him. The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time, but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery.
Frederick Douglass
Good Freedom Day Quotes — Juneteenth Quotes
Won’t it be wonderful when Black History and Native American History and Jewish History, and all of U.S. History is taught in one book? Just U.S. history.
Maya Angelou
I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free, so other people would also be free.
Rosa Parks
The American dream wasn’t meant for me, ’cause lady liberty’s a hypocrite; she lied to me, promised me freedom, education, and equality, never gave me nothing but slavery but now look at how dangerous you made me callin’ me a mad man because I’m strong and bold.
Tupac Shakur
For sheer drama, few accounts of slavery match Solomon Northrup’s tale of abduction from freedom and forcible enslavement.
Ira Berlin
Freedom from slavery is achieved only when a person starts to feel and understand that he would prefer death to life as a slave.
Jamail Singh Bhindranwale
Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won; you earn it and win it in every generation.
Coretta Scott King
Frederick Douglas taught that literacy is the path from slavery to freedom. There are many kinds of slavery and many kinds of freedom, but reading is still the path.
Carl Sagan
Emancipation Day Quotations
Slavery — a curse that corrupts on both sides.
Brent Weeks
You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.
Booker T. Washington
The difference between technology and slavery is that slaves are fully aware that they are not free.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Daddy once told me that there’s a rage passed down to every Black man from his ancestors, born the moment they couldn’t stop the slave masters from hurting their families. Daddy also said there’s nothing more dangerous than when that rage is activated.
Angie Thomas
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
Frederick Douglass
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient are slaves.
Henry David Thoreau
If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Juneteenth Sayings
The black-white rift stands at the very center of American history. It is the great challenge to which all our deepest aspirations for freedom must rise. If we forget that, if we forget the great stain of slavery that stands at the heart of our country, our history, our experiment, we forget who we are, and we make the great rift deeper and wider.
Ken Burns
I freed a thousand slaves; I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.
Harriet Tubman
Those who defy freedom to others deserve it, not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
My crime is that I will not go with the multitude to do evil. My singularity is that when I say that freedom is of God and slavery is of the devil, I mean just what I say. (And) My fanaticism is that I insist on the American people abolishing slavery or ceasing to prate on the rights of man.
William Lloyd Garrison
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Patrick Henry
Celebration Day Insights
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.
William Wilberforce
Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible – and there is still so much work to do.
Barack Obama
Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.
Friedrich Nietzche
See Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes.
Famous Juneteenth Quotes
Here are some famous and noteworthy Juneteenth quotes.
Hold those things that tell your story and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody tell your story is so important. It says: I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.
Maya Angelou
What I love about Juneteenth is that even in that extended wait, we still find something to celebrate. Even though the story has never been tidy, and Black folks have had to march and fight for every inch of our freedom, our story is nonetheless one of progress.
Michelle Obama
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela
Short Juneteenth Quotes
‘The dawn is our’ in ’a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished.’
Amanda Gorman, Youth Poet Laureate
Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude, and I am utterly averse to the admission of slavery into the Missouri Territories.
John Adams
Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)
Slavery. Nature made not slaves, nor should man.
Brent Weeks
Then the long-headed man with a care-chiseled face who sat in the White House saw the inevitable and emancipated the slaves of rebels on New Year’s, 1863.
W.E.B. DuBois
Inspirational Juneteenth Quotes
Three hundred years of humiliation. Abuse and deprivation cannot expect to find voice in a whisper.
Martin Luther King
There are no tyrants if there are no slaves.
Jose P. Rizal
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.
Desmond Tutu – See Inspirational Desmond Tutu Quotes.
In the end, anti-Black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.
Shirley Chisholm
Longfellow on Slaves
These are the woes of slaves;
They glare from the abyss;
They cry from unknown graves,
We are the Witnesses!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Benjamin Franklin’s Quote on Slavery — Juneteenth Quotes
Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.
The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties and impair the social affections of his heart.
To instruct, to advise, to qualify those who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty – and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.
Benjamin Franklin
Isabel Wilkerson on the Institution of Slavery — Juneteenth Quotes
The institution of slavery was, for a quarter millennium, the conversion of human beings into currency, into machines who existed solely for the profit of their owners, to be worked as long as the owners desired, who had no rights over their bodies or loved ones, who would be mortgaged, bred, won in a bet, given as wedding presents, bequeathed to heirs, sold away from spouses or children to cover an owner’s debt or to spite a rival, or to settle an estate.
They regularly whipped, raped, and branded, subjected to any whim or distemper of the people who owned them. Some were castrated or endured other tortures too grisly for these pages, tortures that the Geneva Conventions would have banned as war crimes had the conventions applied to people of African descent on this soil. Before there was the United States of America, there was enslavement.
Theirs was a living death passed down for twelve generations.
Isabel Wilkerson
Muhammad Ali Quote on Freedom — Juneteenth Quotes
No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end.
I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once, and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people, or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom, and equality.
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn’t have to draft me; I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So, I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.
Muhammad Ali
Juneteenth Captions
Here is a list of Juneteenth Captions and Slogan. See if you can find one (or more) that reflects how you feel about Juneteenth.
Our Independence Day!
Juneteenth is more than a parade.
Celebrate this day of freedom.
Juneteenth for all.
Celebrate the end of slavery in America.
Tell everyone about freedom.
Juneteenth – a day to rejoice.
Spread freedom and liberty.
1865 – Honoring the end of slavery in America.
Juneteenth is Freedom Day.
May we never forget.
Happy Juneteenth – let freedom ring!
Celebrate Black History.
Freedom Day Captions for Instagram
God bless our freedom!
Join hands and remember.
Freedom should be an essential right for everyone.
Free at last!
Juneteenth is history.
Celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S.
Honor the sacrifices of our ancestors.
Freedom is fierce!
In memory of the day of jubilee.
Freedom is like the sun; we are all free under the sun.
Celebrate Juneteenth forever!
Juneteenth – how far we have come, yet how far we have yet to go.
Have a happy, healthy, and free Juneteenth!
Juneteenth is more than a historical date.
Happy Juneteenth, always remember.
#Juneteenth#Free#Remember
Jubilee Day Captions
The human spirit is resilient in its ability to persevere.
Remember the sacrifices made for Juneteenth.
Never give up; you will be free.
Juneteenth is an observance of the freedom some take for granted.
Look ahead and not back. Look forward and think black.
Be proud and shout, let freedom ring!
A day to celebrate broken shackles and links.
Juneteenth. If there is a will, there is a way.
Restore dignity and pride on Juneteenth.
Juneteenth is the day when slavery ended and unity began.
Freedom is forever; slavery is for never.
Turns out freedom is sweet.
Proclamation Celebration!
Enjoy Juneteenth with family and friends.
It is a celebration of freedom, not a commemoration of slavery.
Juneteenth is also remembering heroes.
Emancipation Day Captions
Celebrate Juneteenth all year long!
We will never forget freedom is not free.
Freedom for all, not just a few.
Juneteenth – honor those who made it possible.
True freedom never dies.
Juneteenth – freedom from this day forth!
Freedom is a blessing and a right for all.
Juneteenth is freedom.
Never let your freedom be denied.
Juneteenth isn’t about the past; it is hope for the future.
Show your Black power on Juneteenth.
Freedom came with a price, pay it forward.
Juneteenth – a day to pay respects.
Today, we celebrate freedom, family, and love. Happy Juneteenth!
Make a statement, put a Juneteenth sign on your lawn.
Let freedom ring for all!
Juneteenth is the day that freedom was born.
God Bless America, God Bless Africa.
Juneteenth Slogans
Honor the bold and brave and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
I am proud of my race on Juneteenth and every day.
We need to learn from the past to ensure a better future.
Juneteenth is all about celebrating freedom, family, and life.
Slavery is a crime – celebrate your freedom.
Juneteenth: We shall overcome.
Slavery is against existence.
Juneteenth is a day of unity, freedom, and peace.
There is nothing like freedom.
Freedom is not the same as healing.
Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.
Faith offers the most freedom.
Juneteenth FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions about Juneteenth.
When is Juneteenth Day celebrated?
Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19th. This date coincides with the date of General Granger’s announcement in Galveston, Texas.
2022 — June 19th, Sunday.
2023 — June 19th, Monday.
2024 — June 19th, Wednesday.
2025 — June 19th, Thursday.
2026 — June 19th, Friday.
Some states have designated the holiday as a specific day in June. For example, New Jersey celebrates Juneteenth on the third Friday of June. Since it is an Official National Holiday, if Juneteenth falls on a Saturday, it is celebrated as a paid holiday on Friday. If Juneteenth falls on a Sunday, it is a paid holiday on Monday.
What is the social significance of Juneteenth?
Established as an Official Federal Holiday in 2021. The declaration was signed into law by President Joe Biden. It is an important way to remember all the slaves who lost their lives during slavery.
The day is often referred to as America’s Second Independence Day. It is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery. It has been celebrated for almost 160 years.
Juneteenth is a joyous celebration day with the goal that we always remember the evils of slavery.
How Do We Celebrate Juneteenth?
There are a variety of ways to celebrate Juneteenth. Typically, communities and neighborhoods host barbeques, parades, festivals, theatrical performances, historical recitals, art exhibits, gospel singing, storytelling, and more.
Larger celebrations include rodeos, races, Miss Juneteenth Pageants, essay contests, and poster competitions.
What is the Official Juneteenth Poem?
We rose.
From Africa’s heart, we rose.
Already a people, our faces ebony,
our bodies lean.
We rose.
Skills of art, life, beauty, and family
Crushed by forces we knew nothing of.
We rose.
Survive we must, we did.
We rose.
We rose to be you; we rose to be me.
Above everything expected, we rose,
to become the knowledge, we never knew.
We rose.
Dream we did.
Act we must.
By Kristina Kay (© 1996)
Final Thoughts on Juneteenth
Juneteenth is an important holiday that deserves to be celebrated. Finding a saying that you, your family, and your friends can relate to is a wonderful way to spread the word of the day.
Commemorating this day will help us never forget. But, moving forward, we must build on what we have learned for even more freedom tomorrow.
Happy Juneteenth Day!
By Tim Moodie
Tim Moodie is a writer, inventor, and creative director based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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