Juneteenth: An Emancipation Holiday

Video Transcript:

Hi, I’m Linda Addison, the Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant Chair.

Hi, I’m Michelle Renee Lane and I write horror.

Hi, I’m Steven Van Patten. I write scary stuff.

Hi, I’m L Marie Wood.

I’m Marc Abbott.

I’m Sumiko Saulson, on the Social Media Team for the Horror Writers Association.

Linda Addison: On behalf of the Horror Writers Association we’d like to congratulate all African Americans on the progress recently made towards making Juneteenth a federally recognized Black Liberation Holiday.

Nikki Woolfolk: On Tuesday, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution establishing June 19 as Juneteenth, a National Black Independence Day, a US holiday. The House voted 415-14 to make Juneteenth a national holiday commemorating the emancipation of African Americans from slavery in the United States.

Sumiko Saulson: After this it was sent before President Joe Biden, who approved it on Wednesday, June 17, 2021 making it the first new National Holiday in the United States of America since Martin Luther King Day was established as a Federal Holiday in 1983.

Steven Van Patten: Juneteenth, an abbreviation of the words June and Nineteenth, commemorates the anniversary of June 19, 1865. That day, Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed African Americans there that the Civil War had ended and they were free at last.

Ace Antonio Hall: Because the United States was still in the middle of the Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, many of those it intended to free remained enslaved for another two and a half years.

L Marie Wood: For this reason, Juneteenth has long been recognized as Black Independence Day across the nation. It was first celebrated the following year as Jubilee Day in the State of Texas, where it has been a state holiday since 1979.

Nicole Givens Kurtz: From Toni Morrison’s Beloved to Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation, the phantoms of our shared history under slavery and its legacy haunt many African American ghost stories and tales of terror.

Michelle Renee Lane: Slavery has left its mark on our psyche as a people. We write scary stories about it because vampires, ghosts, werewolves and skeletons are never quite as horrifying as the lived experiences of African Americans under slavery.

Marc Abbott: Commemorating Juneteenth as a national holiday is a step towards ensuring that we never forget those dark days, never repeat them, and that we as a people, and as a nation can truly heal.

Video script and video editing by Sumiko Saulson (6/18/2021) for the Horror Writers Association social media team