Legislation designating Juneteenth as an official public holiday in New York was signed last week by the Governor. The bill’s co-sponsor Stony Point and Orange County assemblyman Colin Schmitt says the holiday commemorates the end of slavery and celebrates black and African-Americans’ freedom and achievements…
Juneteenth commemorates June 19th, 1865, when the news of liberation came to Texas more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1st, 1863. African-Americans across Texas were informed of their freedom when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston to announce all slaves were free.