June Holidays

June is another one of those summer months soft on holidays. Perhaps the dearth of holidays during the summer is because so many celebrants are on the road to vacation. While certain holidays certainly become reasons in themselves to hit the road, it probably should be expected that there really doesn't need to be many special days of observance to justify traveling during the height of vacation season.

Flag Day: June 14
June 14 was set aside as Flag Day because it commemorates that day as the date on which the flag was officially adopted by the Second Continental Congress in 1777. Flag Day was first observed 100 years after that monumental decision, although it would not be until 1949 that President Truman signed the bill into law authorizing Flag Day as an official day of observance.

As for the actual traditions of observing Flag Day, it essentially comes down to flying the Stars and Stripes. Until recent decades, Flag Day would be quite obvious to anyone walking down any street in America in the middle of June. In addition to flags waving in the wind high atop flag poles at government offices, banks and schools, nearly every house in the country would display a flag from its roof or at least a miniature flag on a wooden stick poking into the front yard.

Even though Flag Day celebrations have been on the wane, Flag Day is still observed on a municipal level in many cities, with well-attended parades and ceremonies. The most-celebrated Flag Day parade takes place in Troy, NY, and it is often attended by more than 50,000 residents and tourists.

Father's Day: Third Sunday in June
Hard as it may be to believe, Father's Day has only been officially established since 1972. Efforts to create a paternal holiday similar to Mother's Day began in Spokane, Washington, courtesy of Sonora Dodd. Mrs. Dodd came home from a Mother's Day observance in 1909 with a newfound determination to establish a day to honor dads, as her own father raised her and her siblings by himself. Soon afterward, a number of influential Americans seized on Dodd's idea.

Father's Day took quite some time to become established nationwide, however. Although President Calvin Coolidge recognized Father's Day in 1924, it wasn't officially adopted until 1972 under President Richard Nixon. Father's Day has gone on to become one of the most popular holidays in the country, at least among the greeting card industry. The number of greeting cards sent on Father's Day is behind only Christmas, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Easter.

A growing Father's Day tradition is the extravagant Father's Day brunch. More and more hotels and restaurants are offering up these brunches, which often include sumptuous menu items and decorative desserts offered only on special occasions.

Juneteenth: June 19
Juneteenth gets its unique name from the combination of the month and day in which it is celebrated. Despite being celebrated for far longer than such other more popular holidays like Mother's Day or Father's Day, Juneteenth remains a mystery to the vast majority of Americans.

Perhaps that is because Juneteenth is seen as a June holiday for a quite specific segment of America. Juneteenth is also known as either Emancipation Day or Freedom Day because it commemorates the abolition of slavery. Another reason why Juneteenth is not as well known as it should be is because for most of its existence it is primarily celebrated in the state in which it was founded.

Juneteenth began life in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 to celebrate the official announcement of the emancipation of slaves two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation actually went into effect. The celebration and observance of this holiday was practically confined to Texas for the next few decades before slowly spreading across the country. In the following decades, Juneteenth has managed to grow in stature and recognition. One of America's finest novelists, Ralph Ellison, titled one of his books "Juneteenth."

A primary way of observing and celebrating Juneteenth is to highlight the importance of sharing and community. As a result, the Juneteenth feast is perhaps the holiday's most recognizable feature, dominated by the essential component of making the feast a potluck affair in which everybody brings a dish.