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Our FamilyForum Welcome Center => Our FamilyForum News & Events => Topic started by: Ken on June 19, 2020, 09:04:04 AM
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On June 19, 1865, enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas, were told they were free.
Juneteenth (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth; also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day) is a non-federal American holiday and an official Texas state holiday, celebrated annually on the 19th of June in the United States to commemorate Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were now free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent.