The book cover of Juneteenth: The Promise of Freedom next to author Charles Taylor.
Juneteenth is placed in context in Charles Taylor's new book.
Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021 by President Joe Biden, after years of work to make it happen. The current spate of anti-DEI initiatives makes the holiday seem threatened, and clearly many are worried that the holiday might be ended, judging from the number of headlines and posts asking things like “Could Trump end Juneteenth?” and “How long before Trump cancels Juneteenth?”
It’s not that easy to cancel a federal holiday, though some cities are scaling back their celebrations this year.
Not Madison — this year marks 36 years of community gatherings for Juneteenth. And the Dane County Board of Supervisors last week officially recognized June 19, 2025, as Juneteenth, passing 2025 RES-042 which deems it “a day to reflect upon how we can collectively create a better, more equitable future for all members of our community.”
On Saturday, June 21, the community will celebrate Juneteenth with the traditional parade from the Madison Labor Temple grounds to Penn Park. It’s a thoughtful celebration — and its framework, in part, is outlined for others to follow in creating their own celebrations, in a new book by educator and documentarian Charles Taylor, former dean of the business school at Edgewood College.
As the invitation to the book launch put it, Juneteenth: The Promise of Freedom is more than just a book: “It’s about standing firm in a time when Black history is being pushed to the margins.”
The textbook-like book looks backward, not just at what Juneteenth is — both the historical day, and the holiday— but also places the event in context.
“Envision waking up one morning and realizing everything you knew about history was incomplete. The story you were told was missing vital chapters that, if included, could change how you see the world and yourself,” Taylor writes in the introduction. “Juneteenth: The Promise of Freedom is not just a book about a holiday; it is a discovery of some of the missing chapters that begin in the heart of ancient Africa, wind through centuries of struggle, and land squarely in the present, where the fight for justice continues.”
The book moves from the creation of the concept of race to the economics of slavery in the United States. Taylor outlines what being enslaved was like, drawing from material in contemporaneous slave narratives. Newly created laws and social thought continued to stack the deck against those enslaved before and after Emancipation. Taylor writes about Dr. Samuel Cartwright of Louisiana, who proposed that Black people suffered from a “disease of the mind” that he called drapetomania, which caused them to want to run away from their owners.
Juneteenth: The Promise of Freedom does of course cover Juneteenth itself — June 19, 1865, when word finally reached Texas that all slaves had been freed, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Taylor notes that sites in Galveston, where the news was first announced, still hold celebrations today, including Reedy Chapel AME Church, the “spiritual home of Juneteenth,” and Ashton Villa, where the proclamation was read and where the reading is reenacted for the holiday annually.
The book concludes with detailed ideas about how to plan a Juneteenth celebration — important, as the holiday’s celebrations should grow, and “emphasize education, economic empowerment, health equity, and social activism.”
Taylor also lists “11 Ways to Celebrate Juneteenth” that don’t depend on an external celebration and don’t really need to be restricted to Juneteenth, but can strengthen community at any time, including supporting Black-owned businesses, advocating for racial justice, reading books by Black authors, and listening to music by Black musicians.
“We must now envision — and work toward — the future we want to create,” writes Taylor.
The book is available in hardcover, paperback or as an e-book through Taylor’s website.
