Juneteenth, short for “June Nineteenth marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.

Two-and-a-half years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) news arrived in Galveston, Texas, brought by a Union Army Major General Gordan Granger. Why did word take so long to arrive? Well, it’s Texas! Folklore has it that the messenger carrying the news of the Emancipation was murdered enroute or the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain their enslaved labor force. Perhaps federal troops waited for the slave owners to reap the last cotton harvest before going to Texas. Whatever the reason, Juneteenth (June 19^th) stands as our longest held celebration – the day legal slavery ended. The general time marker when all became fully aware that they could leave the plantation. On June 17, 2021, it officially became a federal holiday.