Library Closed Jun 19 for Juneteenth

The library will be closed Wednesday, June 19, 2024, in honor of Juneteenth.

June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, slaves in confederate states finally received word that they were free. Freedom is a thread, and a fight, woven through this nation's history and current political climate. Continue to take action to celebrate and ensure true freedom for all through awareness of racial disparities, mobilization, and bold actions necessary to further the fight for social justice and equal opportunity. (Sianna Brito.) To learn more, visit the NAACP's Juneteenth page.

Reading List

Check out this reading list from the National Museum of African American History & Culture or stop by the Cal Maritime Library for the following books.

Juneteenth: Fact Sheet by U.S. Congressional Documents

Call Number: E-resource 
Publication Date: 2018-2023
This government document provides an overview of of the history and legislation around this day.

Juneteenth (Revised) by Ralph Ellison
Call Number: PS3555.L625 J86 2021

Publication Date: 2021

Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth is brilliantly crafted, moving, and wise. Ellison tells a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.

Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration by Edward T. Cotham; Edward T. Cotham

Call Number: E-book

Publication Date: 2021

Juneteenth is as a national day celebrating the end of slavery. Where did this celebration come from? What is the origin story? What are the facts, and legends, around this important day in the nation's history? Learn all of this and more.

 

 

Envisioning Emancipation by Deborah Willis; Barbara Krauthamer

Call Number: E185.2 .W68 2013

ISBN: 9781439909850

Publication Date: 2012

The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration.

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

Call Number: E185.93.T4 G67 2021

Publication Date: 2021

Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed's On Juneteenth provides a historian's view of the country's long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.