What Is Juneteenth? On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and delivered a long-overdue proclamation: enslaved people were free. This was more than two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. That day — now known as Juneteenth — marks not just the end of slavery in the United States, but the beginning of a century-long struggle to make freedom real for Black Americans. In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday. But the sto