Juneteenth celebrations...

Also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day or Jubilee Day, Juneteenth is the commemoration of June 19, 1865, the day enslaved African Americans in Galveston, TX, learned that they were free. On January 1st1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared an end to slavery in Confederate states. (Slaves in the federally held territories in the Union would not be set free until the ratification of the 13th amendment.) In Texas, a Confederate state where there was no large Union Army presence, slavery continued years after the Emancipation Proclamation — and even after the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865 — as many enslaved people in the state were not aware of the news. Finally, in June of 1865, Major General Gordon Granger and Union troops landed in Galveston, Texas to tell the enslaved African-Americans living there that the Civil War had ended and that they were now free.  According to the Texas State Historical Association, Granger stayed in Texas for six weeks following the announcement and encouraged newly emancipated Texans to sign labor agreements with former plantation owners while waiting on support from the Freedmen's Bureau.  The year after emancipation, in 1866, formerly enslaved Black Texans began celebrating the event with annual "Jubilee Day" festivities. This commemoration is now known as Juneteenth.