Juneteenth Celebrate Freedom
The
Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 but it wasn’t until June of 1865, when
Major General Gordon Granger and Union troops landed in Galveston, Texas to
tell the enslaved African-Americans living there that the Civil War had ended
and that they were now free.
The
year after emancipation, in 1866, formerly enslaved Black Texans began
celebrating the event with annual "Jubilee Day" festivities. This
commemoration is now known as Juneteenth, also called Emancipation
Day and Freedom Day.
