On June 19, people in the U.S. will celebrate Juneteenth. This holiday honors the day when thousands of enslaved people in Texas learned that they were free.
Slavery is a painful part of our nation’s history. Northern states had banned it by the early 1800s. But it continued in the South. From 1861 to 1865, the country fought the Civil War over slavery.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave an order called the Emancipation Proclamation. It freed enslaved people in most of the South. But it took a long time for the news to spread. On June 19, 1865, word finally reached Galveston, Texas. People in that area held giant celebrations.
Juneteenth later became an official holiday in Texas. Now it’s celebrated in other states too.