What Every American Should Know About Juneteenth

The day represents the end of slavery and the beginning of freedom for African Americans

The Oak Park Drill Team makes their way through North Minneapolis in parade formation as part of the Juneteenth celebrations in 1995. Photo: Star Tribune via Getty Images

Juneteenth Freedom Day, also referred to as Black Independence Day, Juneteenth Independence Day, and just plain Juneteenth, is the celebration of the June 19, 1865 announcement by Union General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas conveying the Civil War ended and all enslaved people were now free.

Most people assume the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, freed the enslaved. For the longest time, I did too.

But like most American history I learned in school, there’s usually more to it.

This is what really happened.

A Juneteenth celebration, in Texas, 1900. Photo: Grace Murray Stephenson via Austin History Center/Wikimedia Commons

The Emancipation Proclamation called for instantaneous freedom for all enslaved people throughout the nation. However, since the country was still fighting the Civil War at the time the proclamation was issued, the Confederate states that seceded from the Union thumbed their noses at the executive order. And if there weren’t enough Union troops around to enforce the order, the enslaved people in those states remained enslaved.