President Biden has said that one of his proudest moments was signing a bill recognizing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
On June 19, 1865, freedom finally came to enslaved people everywhere in the U.S. except Texas, where 250,000 enslaved people of Texas did not learn of freedom until Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed on Galveston Island accompanied by 2000 soldiers. In 1903, a Black man had stepped into a TX office asking whether there was news about whether slavery had ended. Texas was the last holdout for slavery. It took 38 more years after the official end of slavery on June 19, 1865.
Enslavers had hidden the news and forced Black people to continue to work without pay under extremely oppressive situations and no pay for 38 years after slavery ended.
DeNeen L. Brown, The Washington Post: What Juneteeth did and didn’t do
The White House: A Proclamation on Juneteenth Day of Observance, 2024