Review: A Flag for Juneteenth, By: Kim Taylor, author and illustrator. A hardcover picture book published by Neal Porter Books, January 3, 2023.
Taylor has created a powerful founding or origin story for Juneteenth. Heavy in the use of symbolism, from the name of her ten-year-old narrator, Huldah, to teacakes, to the carved Fawohodie in the stick flagpoles, Taylor immortalizes the first Juneteenth with her exquisite, hand-sewn, quilted storyboard.
Special, delightful smells waft through the cabin on a fine June night in 1865. “Teacakes,” thinks Huldah. Her mother urges her to go to bed as tomorrow, June 19th, is her 10th birthday. Huldah and her parents are awakened at dawn by the sound of horses; they peer through the window and see a dusty detachment of United States soldiers. The War Between the States had effectively ended several months previously on April 9, 1865, when Robert E. Lee surrendered his North Virginia Army to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
“A man with a beard jumped down from his horse and held a paper up high for all to see. With a booming voice he read, “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the President of the United States, all slaves are free.”
With this re-imagined reenactment of Union General Gordon Granger and his troops traveling to Galveston, Texas to announce General Order No. 3 on June 19th, 1865, Taylor begins her compelling founding story of Juneteenth, which became a federal holiday in 2021. The story is narrated by ten-year-old Huldah. The name Huldah is significant as she is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as a Prophetess who authenticates a document as being God’s word that gives it sanctity, establishing it as a canonical text.
Taylor traces the African American story from Africa through enslavement, and emancipation with her quilted illustrations. She follows in a long tradition of African-American women quilters: the most famous being Lizzie Hobbs Beckley and Harriet Powers – both were born into slavery. Modern folklore intimates that quilts may have contained codes or messages for escaped slaves traveling along the Underground Railroad.
After the auspicious announcement, Huldah’s village (the other slaves living in cabins on an unnamed Texas Plantation) send up loud cheers, prayers, tears and sing songs of freedom. The Emancipation Proclamation was actually more than two years old (Jan.1, 1963.) In fact, the 13th Amendment to the constitution had already been passed by the Senate, and the House and was signed by President Lincoln before his assassination April 15, 1865. It would be ratified by the year’s end.
The village women immediately began to sew patchwork quilted freedom flags. Jacob Menard, the oldest man of the plantation, proclaims, “Today is a Jubilee!! A day to celebrate our freedom!”
Again, as with the name Huldah, Taylor ties this story to the Bible and the story of the Israelites. Jacob renamed Israel is one of the founding fathers of Israel and the use of the word Jubilee has a particular biblical meaning: “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.” In short, all slaves are freed in the year of the Jubilee. Enslaved like the Hebrews, historically, African-American slaves have identified with the Hebrews as God’s chosen people. They too will be led to the Promised Land. This connection is evidenced in their spirituals like, Go down Moses.
The men of the plantation and the children look for sticks to make flag poles for the freedom flags. The men then carve intricate designs into them like the Fawohodie which literally means “grab yours” signifying freedom, emancipation, independence, and self-determination. Symbolizing various proverbs, these adinkra symbols originate in Ghana.
Huldah remembers it’s her birthday so she wanders around the plantation and woods until comes to her favorite tree. She climbs the tree as to look into the future. Sunbeams shine on her and she gathers one in a small jar; the sunbeam illuminates, provides clarity, and is a symbol of hope. Huldah returns home where she puts on special clothes for her birthday and her mother tells her the people of her village have made her a surprise. She sits in the middle of a circle surrounded by her neighbors and they give her a freedom flag. They had made a flag of patchwork green and yellow with a purple horizontal line bisecting it as a horizon. Huldah’s mother gives her a white star to sew on the quilt. She adds the golden sunbeam she has collected: “I placed the star so that it rose from the purple strips like a sunrise. I sewed in the sunbeam so that it could help guide me wherever I might take it.”
After the first day of freedom, Huldah and her parents walk towards the woods. Her parents wrap baby Eve (the first woman) in the Freedom flag and raise her high toward the heavens. The book ends with Ghanaian outdoors naming ceremony popularized by Roots and later the Lion King. The symbolism seems to say this baby Eve will be the mother of a new nation of free people. The baby will never know life as a slave. “They raised her high, and together, we owned our freedom.”

The only flaws found in the Flag for Juneteenth are several anachronisms- the smell of nutmeg and vanilla from the teacakes and the fine, brightly colored Africa dress and head wraps. Nutmeg was rationed during the Civil War and vanilla was too dear to be had by slaves. Slave clothing was mostly unbleached coarsely woven or homespun cotton, pale calico or blue and white checked cotton, and some denim. Rather than Taylor mistakenly adding anachronisms, maybe she has found a way to turn the arrow of time so it points in both directions. Time is no longer asymmetrical but is symmetrical flowing from future to past as easily as past to future. Taylor has written a very compelling and credible founding or origin story for Juneteenth that provides a solid cornerstone to support the new holiday. Many places have little experience celebrating Juneteenth while other southern towns have over a hundred years of traditions to draw upon.
It would not be surprising for this book to make the Caldecott Short List and also win the Coretta Scott King Book Award. ( )