Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those who were enslaved, in January 1863. However, it wasn't until two years later, on June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. After this, more than 250,000 slaves across Texas learned that they were free.
Most Presbyterians have heard the words from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, delivered 150 years ago yesterday, on Nov. 19, 1863.
But how many know that Lincoln considered New York Avenue Presbyterian Church his home church?
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise,” making annual an inconsistent national tradition. George Washington had issued two Thanksgiving proclamations, in 1789 and 1795; Thomas Jefferson zero. Some states had celebrated Thanksgiving, while others had not. Even the dates of celebration had differed.
Throughout the Civil War, the Union and Confederate States would use competing Thanksgiving proclamations to lift public morale. Many of the Thanksgiving sermons held by the Presbyterian Historical Society are pointed responses to such decrees.