On June 19th, we celebrate Juneteenth, the annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States following the Civil War.
In Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Grander announced the end of the Civil War and that those enslaved were now free. This announcement, however, came two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. As many enslavers continued to hold enslaved people after the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth became a symbolic date representing African American freedom, hope, and the end of slavery in the US.