The history of Milwaukee's Juneteenth flag

June 19, 1865, is the most crucial day in African American history. On that day, federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and declared that the Civil War was over and all 250,000 enslaved people in the state — the last remaining slaves in the South — were now free, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

In 1997, a flag was designed to commemorate Juneteenth and was later revised.

The flag features red, white, and blue colors — from the American flag — with a white bursting star of freedom in the middle. An arc runs through the flag’s center to symbolize the new horizon of opportunity for African Americans. The blue is above the red because the red represents the ground soaked with blood from all those who came before us and fought for freedom.

Milwaukee’s annual Juneteenth celebration is one of the country’s oldest — the city was one of the first in the northern states to began officially celebrating Juneteenth, in 1971.

Juneteenth and its flag are significant for me as an African American. My grandparents, who lived in Mississippi, referred to it as “Jubilee Day,” and they celebrated it by enjoying strawberry soda and red velvet cake that symbolized the blood shed by enslaved West African ancestors.

This flag should be flown on Juneteenth and every day in our country.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The history of Milwaukee's Juneteenth flag