When Robert Ridinger began the process of identifying books about Juneteenth, he expected to find mostly historical texts written for adults and adolescents.
That wasn’t the case.
“And I looked under every rock I could think of,” says Ridinger, a professor and subject specialist librarian at Northern Illinois University’s Founders Memorial Library. “I knew what the holiday was, so I was expecting a more historical treatment, but almost everything that’s been written … is children’s books.”
Ridinger sees one positive result of that imbalance – “In a way, it’s good, because that gets them into more public libraries,” he says – and understands why the serious topic translates well to a younger audience.
“One is the very coherent subject: It’s easily described. It’s limited in scope. It’s something that happened once that has had long-term impact. It’s something that kids are able to buy into,” he says. “And there are a lot of good stories that came out of it; some talk about a child going to his very first Juneteenth celebration, what it is and why it’s important.”
- Robert Ridinger’s Juneteenth Reading List
“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation
from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free.
This involves an absolute equality of personal rights
and rights of property between former masters and slaves.”
President Biden signed legislation in June 2021 that designated Juneteenth a federal holiday, the culmination of decades of advocacy and activism from the Black community.
Opal Lee, a 95-year-old former teacher and longtime champion of that cause, joined Biden at the signing ceremony in Washington, D.C. Five years earlier, the then-89-year-old walked from Fort Worth, Texas, to the nation’s capital to bring attention to the issue.
Lee is the subject of one of those children’s books: “Opal Lee and What It Means to be Free: The True Story of the Grandmother of Juneteenth,” by author Alice Faye Duncan and illustrator Keturah A. Bobo.
Another biography also has connections to the event.
“General Gordon Granger: The Savior of Chickamauga and the Man Behind ‘Juneteenth’ ” is author Robert C. Conner’s 2013 account of the life of the commander of U.S. troops in Texas who finally brought the news to Galveston.
Beyond those, Ridinger says, the list of “serious” histories is fairly short considering the 157 years that have passed:
- “Hidden Black History: From Juneteenth to Redlining” by Amanda Green Jackson.
- “Island of Color: Where Juneteenth Started” by Izola Ethel Fedford Collins.
- “Juneteenth at Comanche Crossing” by Doris Hollis Pemberton.
- “Juneteenth! Celebrating Freedom in Texas” by Anna Pearl Barrett.
- “Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore” by Francis Edward Abernethy.
- “Juneteenth: Ring the Bell of Freedom” by Lula Briggs Galloway.
- “On Juneteenth” by Annette Gordon-Reid.
Ridinger’s list begins in 1978 with “Let’s Pretend: Mae Dee and Her Family Join the Juneteenth Celebration,” the third in a series of stories by Ada DeBlanc Simond with drawings by Sarochin Shannon.
Five more children’s books that touch on Juneteenth followed before 2000, he found, but that number quintupled with another 25 published since 2002.
“That’s only been happening recently, which is part of the retrieval of African American history. It fits right into the whole genre of, ‘Let’s go back and dig this up to make certain that everybody knows about it so that it can’t be lost and forgotten again,’ ” says Ridinger, who used the WorldCat database for his search.
“Now, in this case, with Juneteenth finally being made a national holiday, it’s not going to be forgotten. But with that, it means people are going to be asking, ‘What is it, and why is it important? Why did the president find it necessary to make this date a national holiday?’ – so I would expect to see a lot more books,” he adds.
“Unless you know African Americans, and you’ve learned about it from them, you’re not going to know what this is all about. For those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to be born Black, we’re going to need to have books on this. And if they’re children’s books, so be it – as long as people can learn. I suspect we’ll see a whole bunch of new stuff coming out in the next five to 10 years just because the demand will be there.”
Ridinger, who joined NIU in 1981 and is the subject specialist librarian for African American Studies (among 11 other topics), is curious to know how many of the out-of-print books he found might enjoy new life in reissue or electronically.
Some of the existing works are currently available at Founders, and he has supplied his complete list to Leanne VandeCreek, the library’s associate dean for Public Services with oversight of the on-campus collection.
He also is confident that the DeKalb and Sycamore public libraries will have some of the books on their shelves, and points interested readers to the PrairieCat Library Catalog that serves 21 counties in northern Illinois as another avenue to borrow books.
“Fortunately, searching our catalog for something on Juneteenth is a very unique search term. You can’t possibly get anything that isn’t relevant. Juneteenth has everything, wrapped in one term,” Ridinger says. “If people use that as a search term, whether it’s with us or statewide, they’ll pull up whatever it out there, which is good.”
Original source can be found here.
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