Juneteenth holiday explainer
June 19, 1865, over two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the Juneteenth holiday is born. It marks the day when Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce—and to demand—that the state’s enslaved people be freed.
The news hadn’t yet reached Galveston because in the 1860s it took a great deal longer for information to be sent across the country—and because members of the former Confederacy were not quick to tell their slaves that they had been legally freed.
As the Union Army moved through the south spreading as much information as they could, the news of the end of slavery—and eventually the end of the war—became more widespread.
Things didn’t change much at first. Many of the former slaves were refused payment for their work. The lack of financial independence kept them tied to what should have been their former lives. By law they were free—by circumstance they were not.
But Juneteenth was still celebrated, as it should have been, a year after Granger’s announcement in Galveston. The holiday became an annual event, and has continued to evolve into a celebration of freedom for Black Americans.
Juneteenth is now a federal holiday. Another important step in illuminating the history of Black Americans, and as a reminder of what it truly is to be free.