CELEBRATE JUNETEENTH!
Juneteenth celebrations have widely expanded across the country since the day became a national holiday in 2021, when the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act was signed into law.
The holiday's origin story begins June 19, 1865 in Galveston, Texas, which was the western-most area of the Union in 1865. On this date, enslaved people in Texas there were told of their emancipation two-and-a-half years earlier when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Slaveholders in Texas had kept the information to themselves, extending the period of enslavement. The following year, in 1866, a celebration was had in Texas, the first Juneteenth observance to recognize freedom from slavery in the United States.
Original source can be found here.
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