Ok - it's a DAY we celebrate the end of slavery, even though technically - it hadn't ended - or hadn't officially been declared ended - or legally ended as part of the Constitution - or de facto ended, by virtue of it actually eliminated. According to two posters here, it hasn't ended.
That's just the way we celebrate holidays - Columbus landed in the Bahamas on October 12, but he actually never set foot on the continent. So it's not the day he "discovered America" and other people had arrived here first. Independence Day is celebrated on July 4, but the Declaration was signed two days earlier (it was passed through the Continental Congress two days later). But we weren't really independent until we won it by the end of the war. If you ask a New Englander - we became "independent" when we started shooting at them. Of course, we don't celebrate either Washington's birthday or MLK's birthday consistently on their ACTUAL birthdays. And so on.
We choose a day and we go with it. Juneteenth has a tradition going back more than a hundred years. Works for me.
STILL think we could use a better name - Juneteenth sounds ignorant.
When will black leaders start complaining that people aren't celebrating what the day really means, instead using the day off to go to the beach.
Like they did over the MLK holiday .