"Oh, We Knowed What Was Goin’ On": The Myths (and Lies) of Juneteenth | History News Network

"Oh, We Knowed What Was Goin’ On": The Myths (and Lies) of Juneteenth | History News Network

92 years old and blind, in June 1937 a formerly enslaved Texan named Felix Haywood talked to a WPA writer about the Civil War and its aftermath. “ Oh, we knowed what was goin’ on in it all the time,” said Haywood, “We had papers in them days just like now.” Heywood exposed a central canard of Juneteenth as a day when uninformed Blacks in Texas first learned they were free. In fact, General Gordon Granger and his 1,800 Union troops were not in Te…

"Oh, We Knowed What Was Goin’ On": The Myths (and Lies) of Juneteenth