06/19/2026
Juneteenth National Holiday
On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that enslaved people were free under the Emancipation Proclamation.
Although President Abraham Lincoln had issued the proclamation more than two years earlier, its enforcement did not reach Texas until after the Civil War was effectively over. The announcement marked a historic turning point and became the foundation of Juneteenth, a day that commemorates freedom, resilience, and the end of slavery in the United States.
Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. The holiday's name, first used in the 1890s, is a portmanteau of the words "June" and "nineteenth", referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation in Texas.