Juneteenth Pennsylvania

Hats off to Governor Thomas Westerman Wolf and the state of Pennsylvania for making the Juneteenth Celebration a state holiday. On June 19th, 2019 the State of Pennsylvania joined the growing list of states in this country that recognize Juneteenth as a State Holiday.

When it comes to Pennsylvania and slavery what is now known as the state of Pennsylvania, back in the late 1600s was known as the Delaware Valley. When the Dutch and Swedes first established their colonies there. As early as 1639 slavery can be documented in the Delaware Valley.  It would be the German and Quaker immigrants that would speak out against slavery back then and they would be joined in their slavery protest by the Methodist and Baptists whose preaching to the slaveholders would fall upon deaf ears for the next few hundred years.

After the American Revolutionary War in 1776, the Gradual Abolition Act would be passed in Pennsylvania. The 1780 law established that children born to a slave mother after the year 1780 would be born free. The way the Gradual Abolition Act was written offered a brand of freedom that took effect at the age of 28 years at which time children born to a slave mother were to be set free after years of indentured servitude.

The abolition of slavery was celebrated in Pennsylvania in 1865 when the news about the end of slavery finally went public in the north and in the south and appeared in all the news media available at that time. From that day on, up to and including the state's 154th celebration of Juneteenth the state of Pennsylvania has celebrated the Juneteenth tradition. The 2019 Juneteenth Day Celebration stands out because this year the celebration was made into a state holiday; ensuring that Juneteenth history and tradition will continue to be recognized and passed on to future generations of Americans.

What was celebrated at the time as the end of slavery in the south was soon followed by a celebration of the passage of the 13th Amendment which plugged the loophole in the Emancipation Proclamation (to free all the slave in confederate held areas) by formally abolishing slavery throughout all of the states, north, and south.

So thank you Pennsylvania, from the Juneteenth Day 1 Blog, for becoming yet another state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday, and for 154 years of keeping the Juneteenth tradition alive. There is still a move on to make Juneteenth a national holiday and it seems to be happening one state at a time.