A Curious Connection Between Juneteenth And The Deadliest U.S. Storm

I am writing this essay on Sunday afternoon as the United States prepares to honor Juneteenth. While many of us have been familiar with Juneteenth over the years, it has become more mainstream and visible since President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law on June 17th, 2021. With the stroke of his pen, the federal holiday was created to commemorate the end of one the most horrific stains in our nation’s history, slavery. My own personal reflections of Juneteenth come from the lens of being an African American atmospheric scientist. Anchoring in that perspective, I decided to explore the curious connection between Juneteenth and the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

According to the GovInfo.gov website, “On June 19, 1865, federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.” This was actually over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was active (1863). Since the end of the Civil War, many African Americans have celebrated the day and reflected on its place in American culture or history. The National Park Service website notes, “Juneteenth is the oldest known US celebration of the abolition of the chattel slave system, and the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in Texas.”

The connection that I alluded to between Juneteenth and the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history is Galveston, Texas. The National Park Service website goes on to say, “On June 19, 1865, US Brigadier General Gordon Granger and his troops landed at Galveston, Texas confirming the news that the Civil War had ended and that enslaved African Americans were now free....the US military presence in Texas was too weak to enforce President Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.”

Over three decades later, a hurricane ravaged Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900. It is still considered to be the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The Galveston History Center estimates that around 8000 lives were lost on Galveston Island and thousands more on the mainlaind. However, it is generally acknowledged that an exact death toll will never be known for several reasons, including undercounting of non-white residents.

The storm happen at a time before weather satellites, Doppler radar, computer models, or storm naming so it may have been perceived to have “come without warning.” However, a historical account by the National Park Service notes, “Galvestonians had been aware of the storm since 4 September when it was reported moving northward over Cuba. From the first, however, details had been sketchy because of poor communications.” Ships could not telegraph information back to shore as easily in 1900. Often referred to as the “Galveston Hurricane of 1900” or “Galveston Flood,” the storm likely would have been a Category 4 hurricane with winds in excess of 140 mph. Can you imagine a Category 4 hurricane approaching our overpopulated, heavily developed coastlines today with very little warning?

The city of Galveston, however, is not the only connection between Juneteeth and the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Race dynamics were also at play in both. There are accounts that many African Americans were involved in the cleanup and recovery. Unfortunately, more ominous connections also exist. In an amazing essay published by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Andy Horowitze wrote about racist accusations that African Americans were serial looters after the storm and that many were lynched. Horowitz goes on to say, “Modern accounts of the 1900 storm tend to omit these stories of looting and lynching....they trace a more comfortable narrative arc, common to many stories about disasters, with lessons learned from a difficult past brightening the path forward.” For further reading on what Horowitz calls the “Galvestonian’s fantasies of racial violence,” I highly recommend, “The complete story of the Galveston horror: trauma, history, and the great storm of 1900.”