What We’re Reading: Celebrating Juneteenth with Our Mosaic ERG
What does Juneteenth mean to you? We posed this question to employees and Mosaic, our Employee Resource Group (ERG) for BIPOC employees, captured some responses in a video. This year, Mosaic is recognizing the holiday and helping to educate employees by organizing a game of trivia hosted by Jonathan H. on the ed2go team and sharing a curated list of suggested reading. “Events like these give us an opportunity to celebrate and educate one another, honoring our history, traditions and what makes each of us unique while also acknowledging there is still much work to be done," says Jonathan H., an Enrollment Representative at Cengage Group. Cengage Group has also recognized Juneteenth as an official company holiday with paid time off in the United States.
What Does Juneteenth Mean to You?
Robert A. and Matt K., Senior Subject Matter Experts in U.S. History, compiled a list of suggested reading that focuses on Black agency during the Civil War through the official Emancipation Proclamation as well as Juneteenth (June 19, 1865) and into the early phases of Reconstruction.
Books
- I Freed Myself by David Williams
- Festivals of Freedom by Mitch Kachun
- A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
- Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865 by James Oaks
- Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps by Amy Murrell Taylor
- Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
Online Resources
- The Black Military Experience by the Freedmen and Southern Society Project
Part of a larger publication, this volume “examines the meaning of military service for slave and free-black men, their families and communities, and the nation. It details the recruitment of black Union soldiers in the Northern free states, the border slave states, and the Union-occupied Confederacy, as well as the eleventh-hour attempt by the Confederacy to enlist black soldiers.” - Visualizing Emancipation
This digital history project “organizes documentary evidence about when, where and how slavery fell apart during the American Civil War. Funded by a We the People grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, it shows how emancipation occurred unevenly across the South, beginning before the first major battles and ending after the end of the Confederacy. It shows the complex interactions between federal policies, armies in the field and the actions of enslaved men and women on countless farms and city blocks.”
Additional Reading Lists
- New York Library’s Kids' Books to Celebrate Juneteenth By Gwen Glazer, Librarian
- USA Today’s 25 Books for Kids and Adults to Celebrate Juneteenth and Reflect on History of Slavery by Hannah Yasharoff
- Penguin Random House’s Juneteenth Reading List
- JSTOR Daily’s Juneteenth and the Emancipation Proclamation
Celebrate Juneteenth by Supporting BIPOC Bookstores
McKenzie Jean-Philippe from Oprah Daily has organized a list of Black-Owned Bookstores in America That Amplify the Best in Literature by state to make it easy to find a bookstore near you or order online.
Many cities and towns across the U.S. are holding Juneteenth celebrations. Find a Juneteenth celebration near you.