Juneteenth commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas when the last Black slaves of the Confederacy were ordered free.

It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — after Civil War's end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

June 19 marks Juneteenth, a holiday that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. It became a federal holiday in 2021 when then-President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.