As a district, we honor the celebration of the freedom, culture, and achievement of Black Americans.
Juneteenth, officially known as Juneteenth National Independence Day, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States after the Civil War and celebrates the freedom, culture, and achievement of Black Americans. On June 19, 1865, Union troops, led by General Gordon Granger, reached Galveston Bay, Texas, where despite slaves having been freed two-and-a-half years earlier by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, General Granger informed enslaved African Americans there that they were, in fact, free. General Granger read an executive order aloud to the people of Texas, which informed them that all slaves were free. The celebrations that followed the reading of the order began a tradition that has continued, and the date became known as Juneteenth, Freedom Day, or Independence Day.
Although African Americans have celebrated this holiday for more than 150 years, Juneteenth only recently became a Federal holiday in 2021 and a Connecticut State holiday in 2022. Windham Public Schools was one of the first districts in the state to add Juneteenth to our school calendar as a No School Day, doing so prior to Governor Lamont making it a state holiday.
To learn more about the history of Juneteenth, we invite you to visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture