Today is Juneteenth, the annual holiday marking the final end of slavery in the United States. It was on this day in 1865 that Union Major General Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston, Texas to announce that the Civil War was over and enslaved African Americans were free. Elaine Holtz is on the board for the Juneteenth committee:
The news came over two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. Today is called Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day.