Union Troops announced Emancipation in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865
It was 900 days since Lincoln had signed the proclamation.
MONROE, La. (KNOE) - On June 19, 1865, Union Troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. One of their first duties was to execute General Order No. 3. Major General Gordon Granger read the order that declared all enslaved people in Texas were free.
It had taken around 900 days since President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. News was deliberately kept from enslaved people in Texas. The Civil War had delayed Union Troops from reaching the state.
Roughly 250,000 people were impacted by the decree.
General Order No. 3 stated: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”
The General Order advised freedmen to remain quietly in their present homes and work for wages. In the weeks after, many newly freed people left Texas to find family in other parts of the country.
The following years led to the celebration of emancipation called many names including “Freedom Day,” “Jubilee Day,” and “Emancipation Day.”
Celebrations were often held with participants dressed in their finest and included reenactments of the announcement, parades, cook-outs, dances, and worship services. During the Jim Crow era, laws dampened the celebrations. But as the civil rights movement grew, the holiday became more popular. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. planned the Poor People’s March to line-up with Juneteenth.
On June 17, 2021 after decades of attempts to create a national holiday, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, making Juneteenth a federal holiday.
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