Happy Juneteenth! Something pretty incredible happened this week. On June 17th, President Biden signed a bill that officially commemorates Juneteenth as the 11th annual federal holiday in the United States.
Slavery is perhaps our country’s most appalling and shameful legacy. Even after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 declaring the end to slavery in the United States, this was not enforced in every part of the country.
In fact, it was not until more than two years later, on June 19th, 1865, that Union officers brought the news of freedom to enslaved African American people in the state of Texas, the last group to learn that the war had ended, the Union had won, and the brutal institution of slavery was finally