Do you know what Juneteenth is? If you are from Texas, the name should sound familiar. 2 It is the name for a holiday that celebrates June 19, 1865. On that day, Union soldiers arrived in Texas. General Gordon Granger read the "General Order #3" from a balcony in Galveston. The order explained that President Abraham Lincoln had delivered his Emancipation Proclamation. Enslaved people in the state learned for the first time that they had been freed.

3 News traveled very slowly in those days. President Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The people in Texas, however, did not hear of President Lincoln's Proclamation until more than two years after it was issued!

4 The Emancipation Proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." That meant that enslaved people living in the Confederate states were freed. Unfortunately, the Emancipation Proclamation was very limited. It only applied to the states that had seceded from the Union. Slavery was still allowed to continue in the border states. These states included Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. Even though the border states were slave states, they had chosen to stay in the Union.

5 The Emancipation Proclamation also did not apply to parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most importantly, the freedom the Emancipation Proclamation promised depended upon Union military victory. Southerners were not going to free their enslaved people because Abraham Lincoln told them to. Instead, enslaved people were only truly free when the Union army arrived. After the war was over and the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in December 1865, slavery officially ended in all parts of the United States.

6 Juneteenth was an informal holiday that was celebrated each year since 1865. It was not until June 3, 1979, however, that Texas became the first to make it a state holiday. In Texas, the holiday's official name is Emancipation Day. Most people, however, still call it Juneteenth. Today, nearly every single state recognizes Juneteenth. Some states, like Texas, observe it as a state holiday. Others recognize it as a day of observance.

7 It is important to remember that Juneteenth is much more than a holiday. Juneteenth has become a day for African Americans to celebrate their freedom, culture, and achievements. It is a day for all Americans to celebrate African American history and rejoice in their freedom.

Why did news of the Emancipation Proclamation take so long to reach Texas?

a
Texas was considered a border state and was still permitted to have slavery.
b
The decision to free enslaved people in rebel states was made in secret.
c
Long-distance communication was not easy, so news travelled very slowly at the time.
d
Union soldiers decided that Texas would be the last state they visited.