After barely acknowledging it for decades, several television platforms on Friday will commemorate Juneteenth and its meaning to the ongoing struggle for black equality in America.
Juneteenth, a blend of the words June and nineteenth, honors the end of slavery in the United States. Celebrated on June 19, it marks the day in 1865 that Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union Army landed in Galveston, Texas, and informed slaves there that the Civil War had ended and slavery was abolished.
Topping the offerings is a prime-time special called “Juneteenth: A Celebration of Overcoming” (8 p.m., ABC).
Led by a team of ABC News anchors and correspondents including “ABC News Live Prime” anchor Linsey Davis, “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts, correspondents Deborah Roberts, TJ Holmes, Steve Osunsami and Janai Norman, and “The View” moderator Whoopi Goldberg, the one-hour program will feature reporting from Tulsa, Okla.; Galveston, Texas; and other cities across the country observing the day.
ABC says “Juneteenth: A Celebration of Overcoming” will present “intimate stories, examining the legacy of the holiday through the current lens of political and social unrest that has captured global attention.” The special will feature stories of black-owned businesses and the #BuyBlack movement to support them, the fight for voting rights and protecting them in 2020, the struggle to pass congressional anti-lynching legislation, the power of black spirituality and the church and other houses of faith, and how a legacy of suffering has often been transformed into joy through the lens of artists.