On this day, 155 years ago, word got to the enslaved Africans in Texas that slavery was over. Slavery had actually ended in Texas with the Emancipation Proclamation that became official on January 1, 1863, but the Africans there were not informed until two and a half years later. When the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19th, 1865, they informed the enslaved Africans that the Civil War was over and that they were now free.

Juneteenth is often called "Black Independence Day", since our freedom didn't come until nearly a century after America's Independence Day of July 4, 1776. Juneteeth celebrations are held every year all over the United States where we celebrate this day as the anniversary of our ancestor’s freedom!