Juneteenth General Order

This activity is appropriate as a conclusion to the Civil War and the beginning of Reconstruction. For grades 7-12. Approximate time needed is 20 minutes.

 

It can be done individually, in pairs, or as a full class. Direct students to begin by taking a minute to examine the document, then responding to the questions. Ask students to keep their ideas to themselves as they work, and to save their guesses for a class discussion.

They should proceed to answer the questions that follow, which will guide them through the process of written document  analysis: Meet the document. Observe its parts. Try to make sense of it. Use it as historical evidence.  If necessary, check in with your students at each step in the process and model analysis if required.

After students have analyzed the document, share the following contextual information from the full document detail page.

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s historic Emancipation Proclamation, U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, which informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. Granger commanded the Headquarters District of Texas, and his troops had arrived in Galveston the previous day.

This day has come to be known as Juneteenth, a combination of June and nineteenth. It is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, and it is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Direct students to the "When You're Done" tab and the following question:
Should Juneteenth be made a Federal holiday?  Why or why not?  Explain.