About Juneteenth
Juneteenth, observed on 19 June in the United States, commemorates the day in 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and read General Order No. 3 announcing that all enslaved people in Texas were free — more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1 January 1863 had legally freed them. The delay reflected the slow advance of Union forces; Texas had been the most remote of the Confederate states. Freed African Americans in Texas began commemorating the day the following year, and the tradition spread across the country with the Great Migration. Texas made it a state holiday in 1980; President Biden signed it into federal law as Juneteenth National Independence Day on 17 June 2021 — the first new federal holiday since 1983.
Juneteenth is celebrated with cookouts, parades, music, prayer services and family reunions, especially in Black American communities. Red is the dominant colour — red foods (watermelon, red velvet cake, hibiscus tea, red beans and rice, strawberry soda) recall both the bloodshed of enslavement and resilience. Many cities hold Juneteenth festivals with gospel concerts, jazz, blues and hip-hop performances; readings of the Emancipation Proclamation and Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July are common. Galveston, where the original announcement was read, hosts a major commemoration each year. Federal offices, banks, the stock market and most public sector workplaces are closed; private sector observance varies widely, though more employers offer the day off each year since 2021.