By Safire R. Sostre ·Updated June 16, 2022
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of legal slavery in the United States. Historically, June 19 marks the day when federal troops arrived at Galveston, Texas in 1865 with news that enslaved Africans were officially free — two full years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Juneteenth — aka Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Second Independence Day or Emancipation Day — is an
