06/17/2026
An open letter to Larry Pittman, Cabarrus County Commissioner, from Immanuel Jarvis, President of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of NC:
Dear Commissioner Pittman,
I write to you with respect for your long service in the North Carolina House of Representatives and your continued public role in Cabarrus County. As a fellow American who values our nation’s history and the principles of liberty, I was disappointed to learn of your recent public criticism of Juneteenth as an “illegitimate” holiday or one “based on a lie.” While we may differ in perspective, I believe a clear-eyed look at the historical record can bridge some of that divide.
American historians, journalists, and official records have consistently and accurately chronicled the events of June 19, 1865. On that day, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3. This order informed the people of Texas that, in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, “all slaves are free.” It marked the effective enforcement of emancipation for the roughly 250,000 enslaved people in Texas—the last major group in the Confederacy to receive word of their freedom, more than two years after the Proclamation and months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
This is not a modern invention or a distortion of history. Contemporary military dispatches, Texas newspapers, and the accounts of those who lived through it documented the day’s significance from the start. Freed men and women immediately began commemorating it with prayer, song, food, and community gatherings. Those annual observances—known as Juneteenth or “Freedom Day”—continued unbroken in Black communities across Texas and eventually the nation, long before any federal recognition. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Library of Congress, and countless state archives preserve this record as a straightforward fact of the Civil War’s end and the final triumph of emancipation.
The push to end American slavery drew powerful voices like Frederick Douglass, the escaped enslaved man who became one of the most influential abolitionists of the era. Through his writings, speeches, and tireless advocacy, Douglass urged the complete end of the American slave trade and the institution of slavery itself, calling on the nation to live up to its founding ideals.
Juneteenth does not claim to be the date the Emancipation Proclamation was signed (January 1, 1863), nor the date the 13th Amendment was ratified (December 1865). It commemorates the day freedom was finally announced and began to take effect in the last holdout region. That distinction is important, and historians have long made it.
As proud Republicans, we stand in a party with a foundational commitment to the principle that liberty is the birthright of every American. Juneteenth celebrates exactly that hard-won expansion of liberty to those who had been denied it. It honors the fulfillment of the promise that “all men are created equal,” a promise Republicans have historically championed. While the sad reality is that more people live in slavery today—globally—than at any other point in human history, the United States has recognized that freedom, justice, and liberty are not just for some, but for all.
I respectfully urge you to reconsider your stance. Rather than distancing yourself from this observance, you could be among the first and loudest voices among freedom-loving patriots to celebrate the real, tangible victory in human liberty that June 19, 1865, represents. There is no contradiction between honoring the full, sometimes messy timeline of emancipation and taking pride in the ultimate defeat of slavery on American soil. In fact, embracing that history strengthens, rather than diminishes, our shared national narrative of expanding freedom.
Thank you for your public service and for considering this perspective. I hope you will join many other Republicans—and Americans of all backgrounds—in recognizing Juneteenth for what it is: a day to remember and give thanks for another crucial step toward a more perfect union.
Sincerely,
Immanuel Jarvis
President, The Frederick Douglass Foundation of NC
