Nashville celebrates Juneteenth at Union fort

Nashvillians celebrated Juneteenth on Wednesday at Fort Negley, a Civil War encampment built by free Blacks and Black Americans conscripted by the U.S. Army.

The holiday commemorates the day — June 19, 1865 — U.S. Major General Gordon Granger, for whom a Civil War fort in Williamson County is named, arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed the enslaved residents that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

The Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, applied to enslaved people in the Confederate states but news traveled slowly during the Civil War. Black Americans have long celebrated the day but only in recent years has it been more formally recognized: it became a federal holiday in 2021 and a Tennessee state holiday in 2023.

Photojournalist John Partipilo covered the event.

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Nashville Democratic Sen. Charlane Oliver reads a Senate proclamation celebrating Juneteenth. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Author Hall, 1, plays an African drum withJoseph Love at a Juneteenth celebration at Fort Negley in Nashville. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Photograph by John Partipilo

Shaundelle Brooks, a Democratic candidate for State House District 60, and Rep. Gloria Johnson (D) Knoxville attend the festivities during Juneteenth at Nashville’s Fort Negley. Johnson is running for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Photograph by John Partipilo

Puppets of, from left, Black artist William Edmonson, architect Moses McKissack III, and Fisk University Jubilee Singer Ella Sheppard
were made by University School of Nashville students, teacher Emily Holt and the African American Cultural Alliance.(Photo: John Partipilo)

Gary Burke, 59, singing during Nashville’s Juneteenth celebration. Burke is the great grandson of Pvt. Peter Bailey of Company K of the 17th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops that fought in the Battle of Nashville. Burke is also one of the founders of the Juneteenth Festival at Fort Negley, which began in 2014.(Photo: John Partipilo)