The story behind Juneteeth

Congress moved this week to establish Juneteenth as a new national holiday.

Depth into juneteenth--providing context for a veryimportant day in U-S history.We turned to T-S-U historyprofessor, Doctor LearothaWilliams for that info.Onething we talked about waslooking at the history of theday.

He says you shouldimagine yourself in thatmoment in 18-65... and try tofocus looking at theexperience on what theseformer slaves were thinkingabout--or how they defniedtheir freedom.

See what theydid on june 20 or the 21 afterlearning they were free--whatis the first thing they triedto do.

That can give you someinsight into what theirunderstanding of freedom was.Dr. Learotha Williams - TSUAssociate Professor, AfricanAmerican and Public History<this day at least in mindrepresents the end of astruggle an end that occuredin different places atdifferent time but on this dayon june 19th we are going topause and remember that but italso leads the start ofanother struggle one if I hada little more time i couldtell you that we are stillgrappling with today.