June 19th is the youngest federal holiday known as Juneteenth, which is nationally observed today. It commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were told that they had been liberated. Army General Gordon Granger’s announcement came almost three years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

President Joe Biden signed The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in June 2021, making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

US Post Offices, banks, US financial markets, schools and government agencies are closed today observing the federal holiday.

For more information, visit Juneteenth is Sunday. What’s the significance behind the federal holiday?