A Prince George’s County Council member is introducing a resolution today in support of Juneteenth National Holiday Campaign and Observance, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

On June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas, the last area of the United States where slavery existed, became aware of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

“We wanted to make sure that citizens knew that the Emancipation Proclamation … didn’t get to all the citizens at the same time,” said Council Member Samuel Dean, who sponsored the resolution.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 66 percent of Prince George’s County residents are black.

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“What we are attempting to do is make sure that we don’t forget our history,” Dean said. Dean believes Juneteenth should be a state or national holiday, and the county has worked to make it so in the state.

“We want to make sure we continue to acknowledge the history and milestones of black people,” Dean said. Bianca Floyd, director of Poplar Hill at His Lordship’s Kindness Historic House Museum, on an old slave plantation in Clinton, said slaves were brought to Maryland generally to raise tobacco.

“Particularly in Prince George’s County, the principal money crop in the 1700s was tobacco,” she said. “And, of course, with tobacco it’s labor-intensive.”

dfowler@dcexaminer.com