Juneteenth, observed on June 19th, commemorates the day in 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced General Order No. 3, declaring that all enslaved people were free. This moment came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which had legally freed enslaved individuals in Confederate states. However, due to the Civil War, enforcement of the proclamation was slow, and many enslavers in remote areas like Texas continued to exploit enslaved people until Union troops arrived to enforce the law.