More About Juneteenth

Juneteenth (officially Juneteenth National Independence Day and also known as Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, and Black Independence Day ) is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of African-American slaves. It is also often observed for celebrating African-American culture. Originating in Galveston, Texas, it has been celebrated annually on June 19 in various parts of the United States since 1865. The day was recognized as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. Juneteenth's commemoration is on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865, announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom for slaves in Texas, which was the last state of the Confederacy with institutional slavery. President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation issued on January 1, 1863, had officially outlawed slavery in Texas and in all of the other Southern secessionist states of the original Confederacy except for parts of states not in rebellion. Enforcement of the Proclamation generally relied upon the advance of Union troops. Texas, as the most remote state of the former Confederacy, had seen an expansion of slavery and had a low presence of Union troops as the American Civil War ended; thus, enforcement there had been slow and inconsistent prior to Granger's announcement. Although the Emancipation Proclamation declared an end to slavery in the Confederate States, it did not end slavery in states that remained in the Union. For a short while after the fall of the Confederacy, due to certain political considerations, slavery remained legal in two of the Union border states – Delaware and Kentucky. Those slaves were freed with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution which constitutionally abolished chattel slavery nationwide on December 6, 1865. The last slaves present in the continental United States were freed when the slaves …

Date & Time

June 19, 2024

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