Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, traces its roots to 1865, when Union Army Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas with news about the end of the Civil War and slavery. President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery more than two years earlier, but the word had traveled slowly around the country, and Granger’s General Order No. 3 became cause for celebration.

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