Juneteenth is a big day at the Taylor Museum

Juneteenth was a day of reflection – and celebration – at the Susie King Taylor Museum in Hinesville.

Juneteenth was declared a national holiday three years ago and marks the day on which Major General Gordon Granger read General Order No. 3 upon his arrival in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. The order proclaimed that all enslaved people were now free.

Susie King Taylor was the first woman and the first black person to have one of Savannah’s city squares named after her. She was born in Liberty County and escaped slavery on the Isle of Wight in 1862.

“She emancipated herself before the Emancipation Proclamation,” said Hermina Glass-Hill, director of the Susie King Taylor Institute. “The war was the perfect opportunity for her to seize that moment. She and her family members and others along the coast seized that moment.”

Glass-Hill, a historian and former associate director of the Center for Civil War-Era Studies at Kennesaw State University, said Juneteenth is important today because it recognizes freedom for all.

“It’s important that we recognize Juneteenth as a holiday, as a whole nation, because our country was founded on this idea of ​​principle, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said. “But freedom wasn’t for everyone. Now, here in 2024, anyone, everyone can realize freedom and the price of freedom. Freedom isn’t free – many people died for it. To know now that our country has come full circle and recognizes this day that has been important to African Americans for decades, even centuries.”

Glass-Hill quoted the famous orator Frederick Douglass, who asked, “What does the Fourth of July mean to me?”

“It didn’t necessarily mean much to African Americans or people of African descent. But the Emancipation Proclamation did. Juneteenth did. The 13th Amendment did. The Civil Rights Act did,” she said. “As a nation, we’re coming full circle and understanding how important this is to all Americans. Freedom is a universal ideal, but it’s an American ideal. We can all celebrate this together. This is a shared history for everyone.”

The museum also housed two bronze sculptures by artist Kevin Pullen, a bust of Taylor and a bust of the Princes of St. Albans, three brothers surnamed Prince from St. Albans, Vermont, who fought in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War.