Juneteenth is an annual holiday that commemorates the abolition of slavery in Texas. On June 19, 1865,- two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect- Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Texas, announced the end of the Civil War. They read aloud a general order freeing the quarter-million slaves residing in the state and that day has become known as Juneteenth.

Top 10 Films to Watch on Juneteenth:

1) To Kill A Mockingbird

Based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning book of 1960, this film tells the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. He agrees to defend a young black man who is accused of raping a white woman.

2) Glory

Based on the letters of Colonel Robert G. Shaw. Shaw was an officer in the Federal Army during the American Civil War who volunteered to lead the first company of black soldiers

3) Roots

A saga of African-American life, based on Alex Haley’s family history.

4) Amistad

Amistad is about a 1839 mutiny aboard a slave ship that is traveling towards the Northeast Coast of America

5) Gone With the Wind

This American classic is the story of a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War.

6) Beloved

Based on the book by Toni Morrison, in which a slave is visited by the spirit of her deceased daughter.

7) Civil War

Ken Burns’ comprehensive survey of the American Civil War.

8 ) Eyes on the Prize

A documentary about the American Civil Rights Movement from 1952 to 1965

9) Do the Right Thing

Written, directed and produced by Spike Lee. The film tells a tale of bigotry and racial conflict in a multi-ethnic community in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on the hottest day of the year

10) Malcom X

This 1992 biographical film directed by Spike Lee about the African-American activist and black nationalist Malcolm X.

takepart and read Barack Obama’s speech on race in the United States.

Related:

A Brief History of Juneteenth