As nationwide protests against racial inequality continue, you’ve probably noticed that corporations are on high alert when it comes to anything involving race in America. Today’s example: Hulu initially planned to have the Taste the Nation and Love, Victor premiere date fall on June 19 this year, but this morning, the streaming service announced that it would be shifting those dates in order to give this year’s Juneteenth “its own day in the spotlight.” If you’re not sure what Juneteenth is all about, you can read up on it below.
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— Hulu (@hulu) June 10, 2020
Juneteenth is the annual celebration marking the unofficial end of slavery in the United States. Abraham Lincoln’s most famous executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation, went into effect on January 1, 1863, but it took two and a half more years until former Union U.S. Army general Gordan Granger read the proclamation to the people of Texas, the last Confederate state to enforce it after the South lost the Civil War.
You can read more about it elsewhere, but Wikipedia has a brief summary of how Juneteenth is often celebrated today: “Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, and reading of works by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou. Celebrations include rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, or Miss Juneteenth contests.”
It’s nice to see Hulu shifting the release dates for Taste the Nation (a cooking show hosted by Padma Lakshmi) and Love, Victor (the spin-off and sequel to the 2018 movie Love, Simon), but I find myself slightly torn here. On one hand, it’s clear that Hulu is only doing this because of the heightened state of the country right now – I seriously doubt they would have done this under any other circumstances. But on the other, I suppose it’s better to arrive at the party late than to skip it altogether. Personally, I grew up in the South and am embarrassed to say I had never heard of Juneteenth until October 25, 2016, when the ninth episode of FX’s Atlanta aired an episode with that title which explained it. So it’s not like I have much of a head start or a moral high ground here.
If you’re interested in more Juneteenth-related content, a movie called Miss Juneteenth premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and appropriately, it’s slated to hit On Demand services on June 19 of this year.
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