Celebrate the 158th Juneteenth (but the second federal holiday)
Today we celebrate the Juneteenth Day of Observance, the second time it’s been a federal holiday.
On June 19, 1865 (158 years ago), Union General Gordon Granger shared General Order No. 3 with Galveston residents. “[A]ll slaves are free,” he told Texas slaves and slave owners, two months after General Lee had surrendered. President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
As Frederick Douglass told upstate New Yorkers in 1852, “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
Juneteenth is Freedom Day, the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day went into effect in 1983.
Texas created “Emancipation Day” in 1980. This year, at least 28 states and DC are also recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday.
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Read more from Texas Monthly, Pew Research, and Old Farmer’s Almanac.
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