Juneteenth is a Time to Remember!

Juneteenth is a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” and celebrates the freeing of the last slaves in Confederate states after the Civil War.

On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became law, officially freeing slaves across the United States. But Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee wouldn’t surrender until April 9, 1865. And the word of the end of the war didn’t reach Texas until June 18, 1865, when 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston to occupy the former Confederate state. The next day, Gen. Gordon Granger announced that the approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas were freed, bringing slavery in America to an end.