A Juneteenth Tribute
161 Years Since Freedom
June 19, 1865 — June 19, 2026
Juneteenth marks the day when Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that the Civil War had ended and enslaved people were free.
This was two and a half years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Texas was the most remote of the slave states, and enforcement of the proclamation had been delayed.
On that day in 1865, some 250,000 enslaved people in Texas learned they were free.
Imagine that morning in Galveston. The war was over. The Confederate surrender at Appomattox had come in April. But in Texas, the old order still held. Enslaved people still labored under bondage, not knowing that the law had declared them free.
Then the ships appeared in the harbor. Union soldiers marched into Galveston. And General Granger read the orders aloud:
The reactions ranged from shock to joy to disbelief. Some slaveowners had hidden the news for months, even years. Some freed people walked off the plantations immediately. Others stayed through harvest, unsure what freedom meant in practical terms.
But from that day forward, June 19th became Jubilee Day. It became Freedom Day. It became Emancipation Day.
It became Juneteenth.
The first Juneteenth celebrations began in 1866, one year after emancipation. Freedpeople gathered in Texas towns to celebrate their liberation. There was food—especially red foods like strawberry soda and red velvet cake, symbolizing perseverance and sacrifice. There were prayers and songs. There were readings of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Declaration of Independence.
As Black Texans migrated across the country during the Great Migration, they carried Juneteenth with them. The holiday spread to cities throughout America.
In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday—the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
It is now officially Juneteenth National Independence Day.