06/19/2026
For those who may not yet know, Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when General George Granger and over 2,000 Union troops came into Galveston, Texas to issue General Order No. 3, which proclaimed all enslaved people within the state to be free, a little over two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. However, it did not mark the complete end of slavery in the United States, which shows not only that progress comes in bursts, but the wide gap between what has been written into law and what would truly live up to our ideals in this country. Today, for many Black Americans, is a day of celebration and acknowledgement of progress; for non-Black Americans, it is a day of service and education- to learn about this formerly purposely buried event in our history and to continue to fight for the rights of all Americans, in their communities and beyond.
Here in our hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts, we have quite a few connections to Black history and the fight to abolish slavery, but perhaps none more recognizable than abolitionist Sojourner Truth, who lived in Florence for ten years. Today, she is honored with a bronze statue and small historical site near the house she owned on Pine Street.
Image description: a bronze statue of Sojourner Truth, an older Black woman standing with her arms out at hip level. She is wearing glasses and a bonnet, as well as a long-sleeved dress and a shawl around her shoulders over it. Color transparencies have been laid over the picture to tint it in the colors of the Juneteenth flag: a red arc peaks at about Sojourner's chin, with all red below and a deep blue above. A white outline of a white, 12-pointed star encircles her head, where a five pointed star is cut out of both color transparencies in the center.
