Congress has passed a resolution establishing Juneteenth as a National holiday.
June 19th is the actual day that the last enslaved African Americans were granted their freedom. On that day in 1865, Union soldiers led by Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in the coastal city of Galveston, Texas, to deliver General Order No. 3, officially ending slavery in the state.
This was more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared that as of January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."
