At the height of the Civil War, on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the “Emancipation Proclamation,” an executive order freeing the slaves in the Confederate States as of January 1, 1863. However, most slaves remained slaves well past January 1, 1863, for of course the Confederacy was in a state of rebellion at the time, and the executive order could only be enforced as Union armies gradually took Confederate territory.
One of the last places to come under Union control and implement emancipation was Galveston, Texas. Federal troops arrived in June 1865 - the Civil War had formally ended in April, and President Lincoln had been assassinated days later - under the command of General Gordon Granger.
On June 19, General Granger announced from the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa that the slaves were now free (as they legally had been for two and a half years already).
The freed slaves spontaneously celebrated in the streets. On the anniversary of General Granger’s announcement the next year, Galveston’s former slaves, and by now those in some other Texas cities, treated June 19 as a day to honor and remember the emancipation. Soon it became an annual celebration throughout Texas, acquiring the name “Juneteenth,” short for “June Nineteenth.” It spread to a limited extent to some other states, but it was primarily observed in Texas.
Juneteenth continued to be observed for several decades, but as memories of slavery faded, by the early 20th century Juneteenth celebrations also faded, though never dying out completely.
Part of the reason for Juneteenth not taking off in a bigger way was violence and the threat of violence from whites. This was the Jim Crow era after all, and whites of the former Confederate states did not look kindly on celebrations of the Emancipation Proclamation. African Americans held mostly small scale rural celebrations such as barbecues and rodeos for Juneteenth, but were generally dissuaded from larger public festivities.
The civil rights movement brought renewed interest in Juneteenth in the African American community. In 1980, Juneteenth was raised to the level of an official state holiday in Texas.
In 1994, African American leaders gathered in New Orleans, Louisiana at a meeting convened by Reverend John Mosley, Director of the New Orleans Juneteenth Freedom Celebration, to initiate a movement to further rejuvenate