06/19/2026
✊🏿 Enjoy your celebrations for this year's Juneteenth and remember the reasons why we celebrate this Freedom Day! ✊🏿
Take some time today to reflect on our shared history and how it may be a different experience for people in different communities!
Juneteenth is a federal holiday that celebrates the emancipation of enslaved African American people in the United States. For this reason, the holiday is sometimes referred to as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day. Additionally, it is a day to reflect on the atrocities and inequalities that African Americans have faced throughout history and in the present day.
Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the new law was not widely enforced throughout the entire United States. For example, in Texas, it took two and a half years for many enslaved people to learn they had been freed.
On June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger and his federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. He told the enslaved people that they were now free, and he shared the news that the Civil War was over.
The celebration of Juneteenth as a holiday began in Galveston, Texas in the 1860s. Now, many Americans honor this day throughout the country. It is a day of celebration and hope. And, it is also a day to pay honor and respect to the many people who suffered greatly under slavery.
Juneteenth became a United States federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joseph Biden signed it into law. It was the first new federal holiday declared since MLK, Jr. Day was officially designated one in 1983.
Tang Soo!
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