What does Juneteenth commemorate?
On June 19, 1865 (2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect January 1, 1863), Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce the final compliance with the Emancipation Proclamation (freeing roughly 250,000 enslaved people in Texas). Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom, marking the moment when all people in the United States were legally free.