The proper way to celebrate Juneteenth, according to activists

Plus: Sojourner Truth and Andrew Jackson |

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By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Juneteenth, which marks the date when enslaved Texans found out they were free on June 19, 1865, may have just become a national holiday last year, but Black Americans have been celebrating the date for more than 150 years. Ahead of the long weekend, TIME spoke to activists who advocated for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday about what it means to mark the occasion and the proper ways to celebrate it. Some companies have already caught flack for Juneteenth branding attempts; in response to Walmart’s Juneteenth ice cream, Juneteenth.com founder Cliff Robinson pointed out, “We don't have a Veterans Day ice cream, we don't have a Memorial Day ice cream.” Click here to read the full story. Here’s more history to know:

HISTORY ON TIME.COM Column: Juneteenth Honors Black Americans Who Created Their Freedom By Janell Ross If you ask Black people, Juneteenth marks the day Black Americans created their own freedom Read More » Activists Want Juneteenth to Be a National Holiday. Here's the History Behind Their Fight By Olivia B. Waxman Advocates have long fought for recognition of the day that marks when freedom came to Texas Read More » Historian: How Andrew Jackson Lost a Presidential Election and Wound up in the White House By David S. Brown Andrew Jackson claimed the presidential election was stolen from him and then went on to win the presidency. His story echoes with Trump's Read More » Rediscovered Documents Reveal Sojourner Truth’s Fight To Save Her Son By Michael Hill / AP In 1828 Sojourner Truth won a court fight in New York's Hudson Valley to bring her son, Peter, home from Alabama. Read More » The Anti-Gay 'Lavender Scare' Not Taught in Schools By Suyin Haynes and Video by Arpita Aneja Under President Eisenhower, the investigation, interrogation and removal of gay men and lesbians from the federal government became policy. Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1949: Princess Margaret “‘Look into my eyes,’ Princess Margaret ordered a startled dancing partner not long ago. ‘I am looking into them, Ma'am,’ he stammered. ‘Well,’ said Margaret, ‘you're looking into the most beautiful eyes in England. The Duchess of Kent has the most beautiful nose. The Duchess of Windsor has the most beautiful chin. And I have the most beautiful eyes. Surely,’ she added, with an impish gleam in her eye, as her flustered partner groped for a suitable answer, ‘you believe what you read in the papers.’” (June 13, 1949) Read More » This week in 1982: Gerry Cooney and Sylvester Stallone “The enormous success of Rocky—ten Oscar nominations and Best Picture of 1976 Award—was more than Stallone could handle. ‘I resented people confusing me with Rocky,’ he says now. ‘I wore white suits with flowers on the side. Rocky isn't very bright, so I went on talk shows to expound on things I knew nothing about. Rocky's decent, so I indulged in dime-store humor. I was a walking whoopee cushion.’” (June 14, 1982) Read More » This week in 2004: Ronald Reagan dies “After the 1960s and ’70s, there were real doubts about whether a mortal man could handle the country’s highest office. It had destroyed Johnson, corrupted Nixon and overwhelmed Ford and Carter. Reagan restored the belief that an ordinary American raised in the heartland could lead the country and give it a sense of direction and purpose…Somehow it took America’s oldest President to make the country feel young again, its mission not yet completed, its glory days ahead.” (June 14, 2004) Read More »

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Remembrance: For the Washington Post’s Made by History section, historian Keisha Blain writes about the significance of Winona, Mississippi, marking “Fannie Lou Hamer Day.” Past tense: For Slate, historian Daniel Immerwahr reflects on how the careers of writers Herman Melville and Lewis Mumford offer lessons on the importance of studying history. From the vault: On Politico.com, speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum looks back at a speech that President Kennedy didn’t get to deliver before he was assassinated, and finds he predicted Trump’s America. World: On History News Network’s website, historian Ruben Zeeman looks at the countries where governments are trying to constrain the study of history. Museums: Los Angeles Times reporter Erin B. Logan tracks the journey of one family’s Bible from the slavery era to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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