Special Sections & Community Voices

It’s been 160 years since the last enslaved people in the United States, then living in Texas, were officially informed that they were free — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

The annual holiday Juneteenth is celebrated to commemorate the “official” end of slavery in the United States, after the Civil War. Juneteenth is also commonly known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day. For Black people, this holiday is meant to be celebratory in acknowledging our freedom and growth as a community.

Each year millions of people throughout the country celebrate Juneteenth. The holiday, made official in 2021, is the perfect time to uphold sacred traditions and give thanks to the ancestors who have paved the way.

As we gather to celebrate Juneteenth, it is vital to reflect deeply on the historical context surrounding the delayed emancipation of enslaved people in Texas. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston announcing the enforcement of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued more than two years earlier, on January 1, 1863.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, was born not just to preach, but to preach to the world.