Juneteenth: From local celebration to federal holiday

1968

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the Juneteenth observance gained increased attention and interest, with the celebration being appropriated by the cause.

In 1968, shortly after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., impoverished individuals built a temporary community at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., known as Resurrection City.

The settlement stemmed from the Poor People’s Campaign, which grew out of the Civil Rights Movement and was led by the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Abernathy and the SCLC organized a “Solidarity Day” rally on Juneteenth of that year, which had around 50,000 attendees and called for improved benefits for the less fortunate.

“Today, Solidarity Day and Resurrection City are footnotes in the overall story of the civil rights movement, overshadowed by earlier, more successful protests and by the violence and conflict that defined 1968,” explained History.com.

“At the time, however, the settlement by the Reflecting Pool was impossible to ignore — particularly for lawmakers and residents of Washington, D.C. — and regardless of its failure to achieve sweeping social change or anti-poverty legislation, it remains one of the largest and most sustained social justice protests in the history of the United States.”