06/19/2022
Did you know?
What is Juneteenth?
The holiday's origin story begins in Galveston, Texas, which was the western-most area of the Union in 1865. When enslaved people there were told of their emancipation on June 19, 1865, they had technically already been freed two-and-a-half years prior, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Slaveholders in Texas kept the information to themselves, extending the period of violent exploitation of enslaved African Americans. The following year, in 1866, a celebration happened in Texas, the first Juneteenth observance to recognize freedom from slavery in the U.S.
