When a girl from New York visits her cousin in Texas, she learns the origin of Juneteenth, a holiday marking the day Texan slaves realized they were free. Set in 1943, this novel about African Americans celebrating a holiday commemorating the end of slavery points out that the battle for civil rights isn't over. Finding power in lessons from the past. Juneteenth -- the day Texan slaves found out they had been freed, two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation -- is June's favorite holiday. This year, though, her cousin Lillie will be there for the Juneteenth picnic. That could spoil everything. Lillie is used to celebrating the Fourth of July, "like everyone else", and has no interest in Southern traditions. But Aunt Marshall, the girls' great-great-aunt, knows the significance of Juneteenth -- she was about June's age on June 19th, 1865, when the celebration began in Texas -- and she just may be able to convince Lillie that Juneteenth is not a "dumb old slave holiday", but a part of her heritage, and the first of many of "freedom's gifts".
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