Juneteenth is a celebration of that hard-fought Black freedom, observed in honor of June 19, 1865 when slaves in Galveston, Texas, first learned from Union soldiers that they were free. Like my parents growing up in Haiti, she was used to seeing Black people in positions of power. She had freed herself from unjust rules meant to restrict education for Black Americans. Mark Felix/AFP/Getty ImagesIn Haiti, Hurston’s creative powers had the time and freedom to unfurl. As the author of “Barracoon,” a book based on interviews with one of the last enslaved Black Americans, Hurston almost certainly understood the significance of Juneteenth.

---

Persons: Nadine Pinede, ”, Nadine Pinede Sophie Kandaouroff, Lincoln, Juneteenth, “, Jim Crow, Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston, Lynne Sladky, she’d, Little, Barnard, Langston Hughes, Hurston unapologetically, Zora, Mark Felix, Lucille, Toussaint Louverture, Jean, Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, Alice Walker, Walker Organizations: Scholastic Education, Haiti Noir, CNN, Union, Black, Black American, La Force, Howard University, Barnard College, Harlem Renaissance, verve, Guggenheim Fellowship, Guggenheim, Getty, La, Magazine Locations: Haiti, ”, Haitian, Galveston , Texas, Africa, Texas, Caribbean, France, United States, Black, American, Eatonville , Florida, Miami , Florida, Little Haiti, Baltimore, Washington, New York City, Jamaica, AFP, Long