As We Recognize Juneteenth
Juneteenth may be a relatively recent federal holiday, but its observance goes back much further. The holiday is also called Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, or Emancipation Day. It commemorates the day in 1865 when word of the end of the Civil War, and an end to slavery, finally reached the last enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas. This occurred a full two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had become official on January 1, 1863.