TIME article

Click on the photo to check out a TIME magazine article about the history of Juneteenth:

Lesson Plan

Renee Linnen created this lesson plan for celebrating Juneteenth in your classroom on the website HotChalk:

Title - Juneteenth Day
By - Renee Linnen
Primary Subject - Social Studies
Secondary Subjects - Language Arts, Computers / Internet
Grade Level - all

Aim:

Students will present end results of their research on the end of slavery in the Western hemisphere at a Juneteenth end of school year celebration.

Background:

Juneteenth is an official holiday in several U.S. states and is growing in popularity both nationally and globally. Juneteenth is the celebration of the end of slavery; the last place to abolish slavery in the United States was Galveston, Texas, on June 19th, 1865, two-and-one-half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. There are several theories why emancipation came so much later to Galveston, and those theories are some of the topics that students will discover as they research the end of slavery in the Western Hemisphere.

Procedure:

• Classes/students can be grouped by area - United States, South America, Central America, Caribbean, and Canada in their search for what has happened to the people from the African Diaspora.
• They will research slavery and how it ended in each area, they will prepare a creative presentation of their choosing (exhibits, posters, costumes, artifacts, models, dances, skits, PowerPoint, poetry, art displays, etc.) of African-American, African-Canadian, etc. culture (food, dress, song, dance, folklore, cultural customs) and they will create appropriate maps and flags.
• Presentations are followed by a big traditional barbecue celebration to celebrate diversity and end the school year.

Reference: Linnen, R. "Juneteenth Day." HotChalk, Inc. Retrieved from here.