06/19/2026
This date became known as "Juneteenth" by the newly freed people in Texas.
The Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Yet, not everyone in Confederate territory would be free immediately. The last slaves were finally freed on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state were free by executive decree.