Which Juneteenth Activity Will You Share With Your Class?

Since 2021, the United States has nationally recognized Juneteenth as a holiday on June 19th of each year (see how it got its name?). You can bring a Juneteenth activity into your classroom with Formative, or share one as a summer learning resource, to help students better understand why this holiday matters and why it was added to our national calendar.

• Juneteenth-related speech activities
• Documents, orders, and debates related to Juneteenth
• Personal stories from before and after the first Juneteenth

[Juneteenth-related speech activities](id-speech)

Read speeches given before Juneteenth 1865 that explore themes like life for Black people in America during this time, unity vs. segregation, and the Civil War.

“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”: A speech by Frederick Douglass

In 1852, abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke at an Independence Day ceremony in New York, where he criticized the United States for its support of slavery. He argued against celebrating a day of independence when so many people in the country weren’t free.

“House Divided”: A speech by Abraham Lincoln

At the end of the 1858 Republican State Convention, Abraham Lincoln, a U.S. Senate candidate, gave what became known as his “House Divided” speech. Aimed at his opponent, Senator Fouglas, and his supporters, Lincoln argued that the U.S. could not remain half slave and half free.

“Men of Color, To Arms”: A speech by Frederick Douglass 

In 1863, after the start of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass gave a speech called “Men of Color, To Arms!” It urged Black men to join the Union Army and fight for their freedom.

[Documents, orders, and debates related to Juneteenth](id-docs)

Students can explore documents, executive orders, and debates related to the events that led up to and came after Juneteenth in 1865.

The Constitutional Convention debates taxation on the slave trade

After the American Revolution, the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to create the foundations for the new United States government. Future president James Madison took notes during a debate at the convention that centered on the issue of slavery and states’ involvement in the slave trade.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made an executive order called the Emancipation Proclamation. It declared all persons who had been slaves in certain states to be free. Because the Confederacy had seceded from the Union during the Civil War, this proclamation didn’t reach people in all the states until two years later, on Juneteenth.

The ‘40 acres and a mule” military order

On January 16, 1865, Union General William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15. The order gave about 400,000 acres of land to newly emancipated Black people in 40-acre sections. The slogan “40 acres and a mule” came from the belief that people formerly enslaved throughout the Confederacy would be given the lands of former plantation owners. President Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, reversed the order.

[Personal stories from before and after the first Juneteenth](id-story)

Discover stories of people who lived through the American Civil War and may have experienced the first Juneteenth for themselves.

Black soldiers’ letters home during the Civil War 

During the Civil War, approximately 185,000 Black men fought for freedom. Yet only a few of their letters home survive today. Samuel Cabble, a private in the all-Black 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; Morgan W. Carter from Madison, Indiana; and Spotswood Rice are some of the only Black soldiers whose words about the war still exist.

James Daniel on sharecropping

Sharecropping was a tenant farming system where farmers rented land from landowners in exchange for a portion of the crops grown on the land. This practice was common in the South in the early 1900s. While framed as a way for Black farmers to make money, it often kept them in poverty instead.

Create an engaging Juneteenth activity with Formative

The Formative Library has a variety of free, pre-made activities developed by our curriculum experts and educators like you. You can use these templates as-is or customize them to fit your instructional needs. Use the library’s sort filters to browse content by subject and grade level to find what you want.

Create your own activity if you don’t see a template that matches your instructional needs! Log into your Formative account and choose how to customize your lesson or assessment. You can create new slides with various multimedia, including audio and video, import content from Google, or enhance a PDF or existing document.

Don’t have a Formative account yet? Sign up for Formative for free today to start creating activities for Juneteenth and beyond!