For those who are not aware as to the origins of "Juneteenth": on 19 June 1865, U.S. General Gordon Granger arrived by a U.S. Navy ship and docked at Galveston, Texas. In front of the Customs House, he read an order declaring that with the surrender of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department by Confederate General Edmund Kirby-Smith on 26 May 1865, that the war was officially over and Texas was officially in control by U.S. military forces and therefore the Emancipation Proclamation was now in effect. All former slaves were now free. What is seldom mentioned is included in this speech is instructions that all former slaves need to find employment to support themselves. Hence, since this happened on the 19th of June, the then former slaves in Texas started celebrating 19 June as their emancipation day, which in slang became known as "Juneteenth". As a matter of note: Slavery was still legal and practiced in the states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland where it was not abolished until ratification of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in January(?) 1866.
