Emancipation Day celebrations honor the end of enslavement for people of African descent in the Atlantic world. The holiday is just as diverse today as the experience of emancipation was in the nineteenth century. Celebrations across the Atlantic world illustrate the transnational and intercultural elements of Atlantic world slavery.

Most Caribbean nations celebrate Emancipation Day on August 1, in honor of the Slavery Abolition Act passed by the British Parliament. While the official year of the act is 1833, enforcement did not begin until August 1, 1834, hence the selection of August 1 for contemporary celebrations. The full title of the act, however, reveals the complicated history of emancipation in the British Caribbean. The title reads, “An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves.”

The word freedom is conspicuously absent, while the words industry and compensating illustrate the restrictive nature of the act. Slave owners were heavily compensated, while formerly enslaved workers were not offered any remuneration. Instead, these workers were labeled apprentices and the vast majority were forced to work for their former enslavers. Apprenticeship offered a step away from slavery, but it was not yet freedom.

Once again, August 1 would be the day for a second emancipation, as the apprentice system was abolished permanently on August 1, 1838. Black workers were now able to negotiate labor contracts with greater freedom or pursue their own independent economic ventures. August 1, therefore, looms large in Emancipation Day celebrations. Each year on that date, events are held in Barbados, Bermuda, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and St. Lucia to celebrate the end of slavery. Other Caribbean nations hold celebrations on other days of the month. For example, Antigua and Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, and Grenada all hold celebrations on the first Monday of the month regardless of the particular date.

The means of celebrating these holidays in the Caribbean often draw on a host of African, British, and French influences. The French influence can be seen by the adoption of large street parties known as J'ouvert. J'ouvert is traditionally held prior to Lent as a component of Carnival, but Emancipation Day celebrations, including the August 1 celebration in Barbados and first Monday celebration in Anguilla, draw upon French J'ouvert party traditions. J'ouvert parties, like other Emancipation Day holidays, include parades, music performances, and feasts.

Latin American nations hold fewer Emancipation Day celebrations. Puerto Rico is the only nation that maintains an active annual holiday. On March 22, 1866, the Spanish Parliament responded favorably to a petition campaign and abolished slavery on the island. In Brazil, no national holiday commemorates the end of slavery, but in the state of Bahia, women of the Imandade da Boa Morte (Sisterhood of the Good Death) have their own celebrations. These women draw on Catholic and Candomblé religious traditions on the Friday closest to August 15 to honor the Lady of the Good Death's role in ending slavery.

Only one nation combines celebrations of national independence with celebrations of the end of slavery. That nation is Haiti, the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. Haitians celebrate both independence and emancipation on January 1 by eating a pumpkin soup known as soup joumou. Under French law, slaves were forbidden from eating soup on New Year's Day. On January 1, 1804, Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité ( 1758–1858 ), wife of Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessaline ( 1758–1806 ), served the soup publicly, and a longstanding tradition was born.

Emancipation in the United States occurred in less uniform fashion. Northern states began abolishing slavery during the American Revolution, and burgeoning new communities of black Americans and their abolitionist allies held Emancipation Day ceremonies on August 1. The ultimate demise of slavery in the United States required the death of 750,000 Americans. Enslaved persons in the United States escaped bondage in fits and starts throughout the messy contingency of the Civil War. Many enslaved persons emancipated themselves during the war by running to the Union army or simply seizing the turmoil of the war to escape. These freedom seekers forced the Union army to develop policies on the fly. The resulting policies, which designated former slaves as contraband of war, unintentionally transformed the Union army into an agent of liberation.

On April 16, 1862, several months prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln ( 1809–1865 ) issued the Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed all enslaved persons in the District of Columbia. Residents of Washington, DC, continue to celebrate Emancipation Day on April 16 and commemorate the event with concerts, parades, public lectures, and more. The majority of American slaves, however, earned their freedom well after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Many were not liberated until the war was nearly over.

The most widespread emancipation celebration commemorates the moment when slavery was finally outlawed in Texas. Several months after Robert E. Lee's ( 1807–1870 ) surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, emancipation remained but a rumor for the nearly 250,000 slaves in Texas. However, on June 19, Page 321  |  Top of Article1865, federal troops arrived in Galveston and announced that slavery was abolished in the state. Celebrations on June 19, called Juneteenth, continue both in Texas and beyond. In 1968 civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy ( 1926–1990 ) encouraged participants in the Poor People's March to Washington, DC, to take up the holiday, and Juneteenth celebrations now occur throughout the United States.

Juneteenth is not the only emancipation holiday in the United States, however. For example, Florida recognizes May 20 as Emancipation Day, honoring the day in 1865 when Brigadier General Edward M. McCook ( 1833–1909 ) read aloud the Emancipation Proclamation in Tallahassee. Kentucky and Tennessee hold Emancipation Day celebrations on August 8, and eastern Mississippi celebrates the Eighth o' May, which remembers when Union troops crossed the border from Alabama in 1865, proclaiming freedom to slaves.

Recent attempts have been made to extend Juneteenth abroad, and black members of the US Armed Forces have been active in holding and publicizing celebrations in South Korea, Afghanistan, Israel, Japan, Guam, and elsewhere. International organizations with American ties, such as the W. E. B. Du Bois Center for Pan-African Culture in Accra, Ghana, have recently begun holding Juneteenth celebrations as well.