The term Juneteenth combines June and Nineteenth. That was the day federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, and Major General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for slaves in Texas.
That day was 2-1/2 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. The proclamation had established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union would be “forever free.”
Juneteenth honors the end of slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. It officially became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
