Juneteenth (a combination of "June" and "nineteenth") celebrations mark the day in 1865 when slaves in Galveston, Texas finally learned that the Emancipation Proclamation had declared them free more than two years earlier. Annual celebrations of the occasion—parades, fireworks, cookouts, community gatherings, dances—spread beyond Texas as African Americans migrated across the country and traditions were passed on from family to family and community to community.

The books below, both fiction and nonfiction and for a span of age groups, delve into the Juneteenth holiday directly or take place during the joyous, yet tumultuous time period as slavery officially ended and freed Black people faced new forms of economic, legal, and societal barriers rooted in racism. 

Learn more about how the Library is celebrating Juneteenth with themed events, storytimes, and highlighting historical resources.

Kids

All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom by Angela Johnson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

In 1865, members of a family start their day as slaves, working in a Texas cotton field, and end it celebrating their freedom on what came to be known as Juneteenth.

 

Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper

Little Mazie wants the freedom to stay up late, but her father explains what freedom really means in the story of Juneteenth, and how her ancestors celebrated their true freedom.

 

 

 

 

Juneteenth Jamboree by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Yvonne Buchanan

 

 

 

Juneteenth by Rachel Koestler-Grack

On June 19, 1865— two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—Galveston, Texas became the last place in the country to learn the slaves were free. Today, Juneteenth is a joyful occasion with parades, speeches, music, and more! This engaging book teaches the fascinating origins and traditions of Juneteenth, honoring the freedom of African Americans.

 

 

 

Let's Celebrate Emancipation Day & Juneteenth by Barbara deRubertis

Abolitionists like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth fought for freedom from slavery for all African Americans. They fought with speeches, writings, and even daring rescue missions! Every year on both Emancipation Day and Juneteenth we honor and continue their fight for freedom and equality.

 

 

 

Juneteenth by Julie Murray

Easy-to-read text paired with colorful photos and informative captions introduces readers to a meaningful holiday, Juneteenth. Readers will learn the history of Juneteenth, including slavery in the United States, the American Civil War, and the birth of Juneteenth as a Texas state holiday. Associated symbols such as the color red and the Juneteenth flag are described, as well as traditions including parades and picnics, music and games, and special foods and drinks.

 

The Story of Juneteenth: An Interactive History Adventure by Steven Otfinoski

The Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War have brought an official end to slavery, yet some Southern slave owners are refusing to comply. The road to freedom is still long and hard for many African Americans, but you’re not giving up. Will you: Overcome obstacles as you make your way north from Texas, looking to begin a new life of freedom?  Seek out your family, from whom you were separated as a child, after emancipation? Fight back when you take work as an apprentice but find that you’re still treated as a slave? YOU CHOOSE offers multiple perspectives on history, supporting Common Core reading standards and providing readers a front-row seat to the past.
 

Juneteenth by Emily Dolbear

Learn the basics about Juneteenth, also called Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, and how the holiday celebrates the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Additional features include detailed captions and sidebars, critical-thinking questions, a phonetic glossary, an index, and sources for further research.

 

 

Hidden Black History: From Juneteenth to Redlining by Amanda Jackson Green 

From Juneteenth to the Tulsa Race Massacre, many important moments in Black American history have not been taught in schools or covered in the media. Discover these events and how they are remembered in the Black community today.

 

 

 

Teens

Miss Juneteenth (DVD)

 

Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates with Tonya Bolden

This is a story about America during and after Reconstruction, one of history's most pivotal and misunderstood chapters. In a stirring account of emancipation, the struggle for citizenship and national reunion, and the advent of racial segregation, the renowned Harvard scholar delivers a book that is illuminating and timely. Real-life accounts drive the narrative, spanning the half century between the Civil War and Birth of a Nation. Here, you will come face-to-face with the people and events of Reconstruction's noble democratic experiment, its tragic undermining, and the drawing of a new "color line" in the long Jim Crow era that followed. In introducing young readers to them, and to the resiliency of the African American people at times of progress and betrayal, Professor Gates shares a history that remains vitally relevant today.

Daughters of Jubilation by Kara Lee Corthron

In the Jim Crow South, white supremacy reigns and tensions are high. But Evalene Deschamps has other things to worry about. She has two little sisters to look after, an overworked single mother, and a longtime crush who is finally making a move. On top of all that, Evvie's magic abilities are growing stronger by the day. Her family calls it jubilation; a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery. And as Evvie's talents waken, something dark comes loose and threatens to resurface. And when the demons of Evvie's past finally shake free, she must embrace her mighty lineage, and summon the power that lies within her.

 

A Sitting In St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia 

1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family&;s objections, to sit for a portrait. While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations; from the big house to out in the fields of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts. This astonishing novel from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork; empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.

 

Come Juneteenth by Ann Rinaldi

Although born a slave to Luli's family, Goose feels loved and respected by the family to which she is attached, but when Union soldiers arrive and tell her that slavery ended more than two years prior, Goose feels betrayed like never before and runs away to experience real freedom for the first time in her life.

 

 

 

Adults

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed 

Combining personal anecdotes with poignant facts gleaned from the annals of American history, Gordon-Reed shows how, from the earliest presence of Black people in Texas to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of legalized slavery in the state, African Americans played an integral role in the Texas story. Reworking the traditional “Alamo” framework, she powerfully demonstrates, among other things, that the slave- and race-based economy not only defined the fractious era of Texas independence but precipitated the Mexican-American War and, indeed, the Civil War itself.

 

 

How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith 

A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view; whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted.

Join us online to hear Clint Smith speak about his book as part of the Schomburg Center Literary  Festival on June 19 at 12 PM. You can register for this free event here.

 

Sweet Home Cafe Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking by Albert Lukas and Jessica B. Harris, with contributions by Jerome Grant

A celebration of African American cooking with 109 recipes from the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Sweet Home Cafe. Showcasing African American contributions to American cuisine, the café offers favorite dishes made with locally sourced ingredients, adding modern flavors and contemporary twists on classics. Now both readers and home cooks can partake of the café's bounty. Featured recipes include Pea Tendril Salad, Fried Green Tomatoes, Hoppin' John, Sénégalaise Peanut Soup, Maryland Crab Cakes, Jamaican Grilled Jerk Chicken, Shrimp & Grits, Fried Chicken and Waffles, Pan Roasted Rainbow Trout, Hickory Smoked Pork Shoulder, Chow Chow, Banana Pudding, Chocolate Chess Pie, and many others. More than a collection of inviting recipes, this book illustrates the pivotal—and often overlooked—role that African Americans have played in creating and re-creating American foodways. 

Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

Shot on the Senate floor by a young black man, a dying racist senator summons an elderly black Baptist minister from Oklahoma to his side for a remarkable dialogue that reveals the deeply buried secrets of their shared past and the tragedy that reunites them. Daughters of Jubilation by Cara Lee Corthron—not quite Juneteenth but a woman with magic powers passed through generations of Black women. 

 

 

 

Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore edited by Francis Edward Abernethy et al. (a digital copy can be accessed via UNT Digital Library)

Juneteenth Texas reflects the many dimensions of African-American folklore. The personal essays are reminiscences about the past and are written from both black and white perspectives. They are followed by essays which classify and describe different aspects of African-American folk culture in Texas; studies of specific genres of folklore, such as songs and stories; studies of specific performers, such as Lightnin' Hopkins and Manse Lipscomb and of particular folklorists who were important in the collecting of African-American folklore, such as J. Mason Brewer; and a section giving resources for the further study of African Americans in Texas. Of particular note is a chapter by William H. Wiggins Jr. titled, "Juneteenth: A Red Spot Day on the Texas Calendar"

Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Freedom edited by Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller

Using excerpts from the thousands of interviews conducted with ex-slaves in the 1930s by researchers working with the Federal Writer's Project, this astonishing collection makes available in print the only known recordings of people who actually experienced slavery—recordings that had gathered dust in the Library of Congress until they were rendered audible for the first time specifically for this collection.

 

Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America by W. Caleb McDaniel

The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice—and reparations. Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. In the years that followed before and during the CivilWar, she gave birth to a son and was forced to march to Texas. She obtained her freedom a second time after the war and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for $20,000 in damages—now known as reparations. Astonishingly, after ten years of litigation, Henrietta Wood won her case. In 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500 and the decision stuck on appeal. While nowhere close to the amount she had demanded, this may be the largest amount of money ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery.

To 'Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women's Lives and Labors After the Civil War by Tera W. Hunter

Hunter follows African American working women from their newfound optimism and hope at the end of the Civil War to their struggles as free domestic laborers in the homes of their former masters. We witness their drive as they build neighborhoods and networks and their energy as they enjoy leisure hours in dance halls and clubs. We learn of their militance and the way they resisted efforts to keep them economically depressed and medically victimized. Finally, we understand the despair and defeat provoked by Jim Crow laws and segregation and how they spurred large numbers of black laboring women to migrate north. Hunter weaves a rich and diverse tapestry of the culture and experience of black women workers in the post-Civil War south. Through anecdote and data, analysis and interpretation, she manages to penetrate African-American life and labor and to reveal the centrality of women at the inception—and at the heart—of the new south.

 

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Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.

Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.