Associated Press reporter Darren Sands points to the name of his great-great-great-great grandfather Hewlett Sands listed with the names of other United States Colored Troops soldiers on the African American Civil War Memorial during Juneteenth commemorations on Wednesday, June 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Today marks Juneteenth, an annual celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States in 1865.
If you’re wondering why it took more than two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation for slaves to be free, it’s because that proclamation applied only to enslaved people in Union territory.
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It wasn’t until April 9, 1865 that Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Virginia, ending the Civil War and extending the Emancipation Proclamation to the Confederate states. But even then, Union soldiers still had to enforce the law in the South. Texas ignored the Emancipation Proclamation altogether.
But on June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger and Union troops arrived at Galveston, Texas, and proclaimed that “all slaves are free.”
Juneteenth celebrates that freedom. The day hasn’t always been in the spotlight, but it has experienced a steady resurgence since the Civil Rights movement and is now a federal holiday.
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