Juneteenth is an annual observance to celebrate the date Union soldiers enforced the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. Texas was the last state in rebellion, following the end of the Civil War, to allow enslavement.

 

Although the rumors of freedom were widespread prior to this, actual emancipation was not announced in the last state practicing enslavement until General Gordon Grander came to Galveston, Texas and issued General Order #3 on the 19th day of June,"almost two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.