What is Juneteenth and why is it in the news?
Juneteenth is the celebration that celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, even though June 19th, 1865, was the unofficial beginning of the Juneteenth Celebration, not all of the slaves in the U.S. were freed by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, but it was a start. June 19th, 1865 was the day federal troops arrived in Galveston Texas taking control of the last Confederate stronghold in the southern state of Texas. The newly freed slaves were still not considered citizens of this nation, nor did the newly freed slaves have the right to vote. Constitutional recognition of their freedom would come with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, and the first official recognition of the Juneteenth Celebration would follow on June 19th of the year 1866.
