HistoryMatters

Health

What Does Juneteenth Mean? Understanding the Significance of the Holiday

Emancipation and Slavery: The Connection Between Juneteenth and African American History Juneteenth commemorates the day when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, to announce that slavery had been abolished and that all enslaved individuals were now free. This announcement came two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in…