Juneteenth coloring pages and how to explain the day to kids

Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, the day Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, informing the people of Texas that all enslaved people were free, as the National Archives records. Good Juneteenth coloring pages show how families mark the day: picnics and cookouts, parades, music, family reunions and freedom stories told by elders. Below is a short way to explain the day to young kids, coloring page ideas you can draw yourself, activities, and picture books by Black authors.

What happened on June 19, 1865

The National Museum of African American History and Culture explains that the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, but freedom in Texas came much later: on June 19, 1865, some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay and announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free. The museum notes that the newly freed people in Texas named the day "Juneteenth."

The American Battlefield Trust quotes the order itself: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free." The National Archives adds that the day is also called Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, that it is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States, and that the handwritten record of General Order No. 3 is preserved at the National Archives Building in Washington.

Juneteenth became a federal holiday when the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, Public Law 117-17, was approved on June 17, 2021. In 2027, June 19 falls on a Saturday, and the Office of Personnel Management lists Friday, June 18, 2027 as the holiday for most federal employees.

How to explain Juneteenth to a preschooler

Small children do not need every hard detail at once, but they deserve the truth. A version for a three- or four-year-old:

"A long time ago, some people were forced to work and were not allowed to be free. That was called slavery, and it was wrong. On June 19, people in Texas found out they were free. They were so happy that they celebrated, and families still celebrate that day every year."

Then go straight to the celebration, which is the part a preschooler can picture. As they get older, add Galveston, General Order No. 3 and why the news came so late. If your family has its own Juneteenth stories, those come first.

Coloring page ideas that come from real celebrations

The Handbook of Texas, published by the Texas State Historical Association, describes Juneteenth celebrations with thanksgiving ceremonies opened by the hymn "Lift Every Voice," and with picnics, family reunions, dramatic readings, pageants, parades, barbecues, ball games and blues festivals. Every one of those is a coloring page.

Page	What to draw	Good for
The cookout	A grill, a picnic table, a big family around it	Toddlers: big shapes, lots of people to color
The parade	Kids marching with flags and banners, a float, a drum	Preschoolers who like long, busy scenes
The family reunion	A group photo pose with a banner reading "Family Reunion" and the year	The page grandparents ask for
Singing together	A choir or a family singing "Lift Every Voice"	Talking about why the song matters
Ball game in the park	A baseball diamond with kids and grown-ups playing	Kids who love sports
Emancipation Park	A big shady park with a sign and families arriving	Older kids learning the history

The last one has a story behind it. The Handbook of Texas explains that early celebrations were sometimes pushed to the edge of town, so Black communities raised money to buy land of their own, often called Emancipation Park, and that in Houston the deed for a ten-acre site was signed in 1872.

A page about a hero. The same Handbook describes Opal Lee, a retired Fort Worth educator, who spent more than forty years working to make Juneteenth a national holiday. A page of an older woman walking with a crowd of children behind her is a gentle way to talk about persistence.

How to draw them at home

You do not need a printer full of downloads. A pencil, a black marker and plain paper do the job.

The cookout. Draw a long rectangle for the table, legs at the corners, then a row of round heads and simple bodies along both sides. Add a grill shape at one end with lines of smoke. Leave the plates empty so your child can draw what your family eats.

The parade. Draw a road across the bottom of the page. Add stick-figure kids marching in a line, each holding a flag or banner. Put a drum on one kid and leave the banners blank for your child to fill in.

The family reunion. Draw three rows of people, shortest in front, with a banner overhead. Let your child write the family name on it. Our guide to making a family tree with kids pairs well with this page.

Trace the final lines in black marker so they copy dark, and photocopy a few so nobody has to get it right the first time.

Juneteenth activities for kids

• Ask an elder. Have a grandparent or older relative tell one story about Juneteenth or about your family's history, then let your child draw it.
• Go to a local celebration. Many cities and towns hold parades, festivals and cookouts. Check your library, a local Black history museum or your city's events calendar.
• Read together. One book from the list below, then a page of a scene from it.
• Make a freedom banner. Each family member writes or draws one thing they are thankful for on a strip of paper, and you tape them together.

Juneteenth picture books by Black authors

Floyd Cooper and Carole Boston Weatherford together won the 2022 Coretta Scott King Book Awards, Weatherford for author and Cooper for illustrator, for Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, according to the American Library Association. Both also wrote Juneteenth books for younger readers:

Book	Author	What it is about
Juneteenth for Mazie	Floyd Cooper	Mazie wants the freedom to stay up late, and her father tells her what freedom really means through the story of Juneteenth.
Juneteenth Jamboree	Carole Boston Weatherford	A picture book about a family and Juneteenth in Texas.

For more books where Black children see themselves, see our guide to coloring books with Black kids and families.

A page with your own family in it

The pages children come back to are the ones they are in: their own family at the cookout, their grandmother at the head of the table. Stick figures are fine. If you would rather start from a photo, our guide to turning a photo into a coloring page for free shows how.

A Juneteenth coloring storybook is also on our own list, researched against museum and historical sources before any art is drawn. It is not on sale. Colorkin can already make a page of your family from a photo, drafted with AI illustration tools and checked and finished by a person.

More holidays and heritage guides are in our family and heritage hub.

Questions parents ask