Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops’ arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. On June 17, 2021, it officially became a federal holiday.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House two months earlier in Virginia, but slavery had remained relatively unaffected in Texas—until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”

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Juneteenth marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed two and a half years earlier, as depicted in this illustration. The Juneteenth holiday honors the effective end of slavery in the U.S.

Crowds of people, recently freed from enslavement, carry copies of the Emancipation Proclamation in this 1864 illustration.

The Union commander's notice of the Emancipation Proclamation, as posted to the citizens of Winchester, Virginia on January 5, 1863.

A rare October 8, 1868 illustration printed in the Cincinnati Gazette reads, "Patience on a Monument." The illustration by Thomas Nast shows a freed man sitting atop a monument that lists evils perpetrated against Black people. A dead woman and children lie at the bottom of the monument, while violence and fires rage in the background.

A photograph of a group of formerly enslaved people at a county almshouse, circa 1900.

Students and teachers stand outside the Freedmen's Bureau school in Beaufort, South Carolina, circa 1865.Following the end of the Civil War, several schools opened up for Black families—and literacy rates climbed steadily. Read more.

A formerly enslaved man and woman are shown at a plantation house in Greene County, Georgia, circa 1937.

This photo shows Minerva and Edgar Bendy, who were formerly enslaved, in Woodville, Texas, circa 1937.

The work-weathered hands of Henry Brooks, a formerly enslaved man from Greene County, Georgia, circa 1941.

1 / 9: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

The Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, had established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

But in reality, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t instantly free any enslaved people. The proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control. However, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people fled behind Union lines.

President Lincoln, Slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation — Keith Lance/Getty Images

Juneteenth and Slavery in Texas

In Texas, slavery had continued as the state experienced no large-scale fighting or significant presence of Union troops. Many enslavers from outside the Lone Star State had moved there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery.

After the war came to a close in the spring of 1865, General Granger’s arrival in Galveston that June signaled freedom for Texas’s 250,000 enslaved people. Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone—in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until after harvest season—celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born. That December, slavery in America was formally abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment.

The year following 1865, freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became the annual celebration of "Jubilee Day" on June 19. In the ensuing decades, Juneteenth commemorations featured music, barbecues, prayer services and other activities, and as Black people migrated from Texas to other parts of the country the Juneteenth tradition spread.

In 1979, Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday; several others followed suit over the years. In June 2021, Congress passed a resolution establishing Juneteenth as a national holiday; President Biden signed it into law on June 17, 2021.

WATCH: Emancipation Proclamation: How Lincoln Could Abolish Slavery

The Emancipation Proclamation

Juneteenth and Slavery in Texas

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