We Celebrate Juneteenth Today!

Participants march in the Juneteenth celebration parade, sponsored by the Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, through the streets of Harlem in New York on Saturday, June 18, 2010. Juneteenth, which refers to June 19, 1865, is celebrated as the day the news of the Emancipation reached Galveston, Texas brought by General Gordon Granger and a force of Union soldiers. Their arrival took place 2-1/2 years after Lincoln declared American slaves free on Sept. 22, 1862. (© Richard B. levine) Photo is black and white.

Dear Commons Community,

Juneteenth commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Tex., to inform enslaved African Americans that the Civil War had ended and they were free. Granger’s news came two months after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House and more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Long celebrated in African American communities—particularly in the South—Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.

Tony

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