June 19 is now officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, a US federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
Here’s what you need to know about the holiday and its history: The day's name is a blending of the words June and nineteenth.
It commemorates June 19, 1865: the day that Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told slaves of their emancipation. That day came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Even after Lincoln declared all enslaved people free on paper, that hadn't necessarily been the case in practice.
Juneteenth is also known as Emancipation Day.
