Juneteenth 2023

While celebrated for over 150 years in some Black American communities, Juneteenth is a relatively new holiday for “mainstream” America. Juneteenth (the holiday's name is a combination of the words "June" and "nineteenth"), or Freedom Day, marks the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger and Union Army troops marched to Galveston, Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free the last enslaved Black Americans in Texas—over two years after the Proclamation had been issued.