Every June 19 the country marks an order that told Texas all its enslaved people were free, then advised them to remain quietly where they were and work for wages.
“This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.
On June 19, 1865, the day after Union troops landed at Galveston, Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3, informing the people of Texas that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves were free. Texans began marking the date the following year, and the annual celebration has run ever since.
The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act became law on a Thursday, and the holiday it created was observed the next day. President Biden approved the Act on June 17, 2021. The first federal Juneteenth fell on Friday, June 18.
The statute that lists federal holidays moves a Saturday holiday to the Friday immediately before. June 19, 2021 was a Saturday. The newest holiday on the federal calendar was therefore observed less than 24 hours after it existed.
The National Archives calls Juneteenth the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. The federal statute was the last stage of that story, not the first.
DEALS & OFFERS
Juneteenth ran on June 19 without a tracked deal. Browse past offers from previous years.
The Emancipation Proclamation had holes by design. The National Archives says it applied only to seceded states, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. The freedom it promised depended on Union military victory.
Union troops landed at Galveston on June 18, 1865. Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 the next day, and its opening line told the people of Texas that all slaves were free.
General Order No. 3 did not stop at freedom. It advised the freedmen to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages, and warned they would not be supported in idleness.
The National Archives does not soften that ending. Its note says the racist language used in the last sentences foreshadowed that the fight for equal rights would continue.
African American Texans had marked June 19 since 1866, and the date travelled with them as they migrated, reaching Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma, then Alabama, Florida and California. It fell away during World War II and came back in 1950 at the Texas State Fair Grounds in Dallas. Austin's returned in 1976, after a 25-year hiatus.
Rep. Al Edwards authored House Bill 1016 in the 66th Texas Legislature. Governor William P. Clements Jr. signed it on June 7, 1979, and it took effect on January 1, 1980. June 19, 1980 was the first Juneteenth kept as a state holiday.
On Juneteenth in 1939, when Opal Lee was 12, a white mob torched her family home. Seeing the day recognized became what President Biden later called an almost singular mission.
She began her walking campaign at 90. Unity Unlimited, the Fort Worth organization she founded, says she walked in 14 states including Washington, DC in 2016. Her set distance is 2.5 miles, for the two and a half years it took enforcement of the Proclamation to reach Texas.
The bill sat in the Senate Judiciary Committee from February 25 until June 15, 2021, then went from discharge to signed law in two days. The argument on the House floor was about the name, not the day. Rep. Thomas Massie, who voted no, backed a day celebrating the abolition of slavery but said the title National Independence Day would create confusion.
WHY THIS DAY MATTERS
The earliest celebrations doubled as lessons in voting rights.
The Texas State Historical Association writes that the first broader Juneteenth celebrations were used as political rallies and to teach freed African Americans about their voting rights. In the state capital the day was first celebrated in 1867 under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau.
The 1968 Poor People's March to Washington, D.C. ended on June 19, and participants took the date back to their home cities. The Texas State Historical Association names Milwaukee and Minneapolis, which still hold some of the largest Juneteenth events.
Public Law 117-17 added Juneteenth National Independence Day to the list in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a), between Memorial Day and Independence Day. That puts it in the same instrument as Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day rather than in a document a president has to renew.
MYTH VS FACT
June 19, 1865 is the day the news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas.
General Order No. 3 says in its first line that it acts under a proclamation from the Executive of the United States. Granger's troops had landed at Galveston the previous day. What arrived was the army.
Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States.
It marks the order that ended slavery in Texas. The 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865 and ratified on December 6, 1865, nearly six months after Galveston, and the Proclamation had never applied to the loyal border states at all.
Everyone held in slavery in Texas was free on June 19, 1865.
The Texas State Historical Association records that the tidings of freedom reached the approximately 250,000 enslaved people in Texas gradually, as individual plantation owners informed them over the months following the end of the war.
BY THE NUMBERS
TIMELINE
GOOD TO KNOW
S. 475 cleared the Senate on a discharge request and two unanimous-consent orders, with the Presiding Officer saying only that without objection, it is so ordered. The House vote the following day was the only recorded vote in the whole process.
Sen. Markey of Massachusetts introduced S. 475 with 54 cosponsors already printed in the bill. Republicans including Cornyn, Ernst and Collins signed alongside Booker, Warren and Sanders.
Sec. 662.004(b) of the Government Code exempts only weekend holidays, the Friday after Thanksgiving and two days in December, so Texas state offices stay open on June 19 with enough employees on duty to conduct the public business. The statute's own name for the day is Emancipation Day in Texas.
Proclamations 10229, 10418, 10598 and 10778 were each issued as a Juneteenth Day of Observance. The Federal Register's index carries no such proclamation for 2025 or 2026, and the Office of Personnel Management still lists the holiday every year through 2030.
The Senate also agreed by unanimous consent to S. Res. 269, designating June 19, 2021 as Juneteenth Independence Day. That resolution covered a single year and is a different instrument from the permanent statute.
Juneteenth is a day of profound weight and power.
GET INVOLVED
EDITOR'S PICK
READ
SET
INVITE
SPEND
Test your knowledge
Yes. The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, approved on June 17, 2021, added it to the list of federal legal public holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103(a), where it sits fifth, between Memorial Day and Independence Day.
COLOPHON
Congress voted for independence on 2 July 1776, and the engrossed Declaration was signed on 2 August. The fireworks come on 4 July, the day Congress approved the text.
On V.I. Emancipation Day, we honor and celebrate the rich history and culture of the Virgin Islands - join in on the festivities and learn about our heritage!
On Emancipation Day, let's honor the strength and resilience of those who fought for freedom and equality in Guyana.
