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Google marks Juneteenth 2025 with a Doodle
June 19 (UPI) -- Google marked Juneteenth Thursday with a Google Doodle crafted to represent both African American heritage and culture, and as a nod to the state whose history helped birth the annual holiday.
Created by San Francisco-based artist Monique Wray, the Doodle features drawings of bluebonnets on each side, which symbolize both the Texas state flower and the Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative, a power company whose service area includes the location of several "Freedom Colonies," which were communities established by freed Black people after the Civil War.
The Doodle also features representations of coveralls, boots and fans, which reference attire from the days of the cowboys, as some of the first Texan cowboys were also African American. Another portion of the picture shows a DJ mixing a record, next to a panel of people line dancing, both nods to Black music in the United States.
A mockingbird also appears in the image, which happens to be the official state bird of Texas.
Before Juneteenth was a federal holiday, it was observed in Texas since 1980. The holiday's name is a portmanteau of June 19, and it was on that date in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and told the enslaved Black people there they were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, already in effect since 1863.
Google commemorated the holiday in 2024 with a Doodle of children playing Double Dutch in front of the Google logo.
