Juneteenth commemorates the official end of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger arrived with his Union troops in Galveston, Texas, to tell the last American slaves they were free. While Abraham Lincoln had freed slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the order relied on the enslavers to inform the slaves of their freedom. Many enslavers chose to ignore the law until Union soldiers arrived to enforce it.
