For months, enslaved Blacks in Texas had heard rumors that their freedom was eminent. But it was not until June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, that the official word of their freedom was proclaimed at Galveston with the reading of General Order #3. The following year Emancipation Day celebrations were organized in communities across the state. Eastwoods, Emancipation, and Rosewood Parks are just a few of the popular locations for the celebration during the 19th and 20th centuries here in Austin. In 1909, local folks began to refer to the holiday as “Juneteenth.”
In 1900, Grace Murray Stephenson, a young white woman who lived just a couple of blocks from the celebration grounds, took the oldest known photographs of Juneteenth in the nation. She shot the image below and several others while attending the Juneteenth celebration out at Wheeler’s Grove (today Eastwoods Park) on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.
In 1900, Grace Murray Stephenson, a young white woman who lived just a couple of blocks from the celebration grounds, took the oldest known photographs of Juneteenth in the nation. She shot the image below and several others while attending the Juneteenth celebration out at Wheeler’s Grove (today Eastwoods Park) on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.
[PICA 05476 Austin History Center, Austin Public Library]
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