On June 19, 1865, Union general Gordon Granger read General Order No. 3 in Galveston. It told the people of Texas that all enslaved people were free. More than 250,000 people were enslaved in Texas at the time. The Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect two and a half years earlier, but it could only be enforced where Union troops were present.
Freed people in Texas began celebrating the date in 1866 with church gatherings, picnics and readings of the proclamation. Some communities pooled money to buy land for celebrations, such as Emancipation Park in Houston. The tradition spread as Black Texans moved west and north during the Great Migration. Texas made Juneteenth a state holiday in 1980, the first state to do so.
President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on June 17, 2021, making it the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Advocates such as Opal Lee pushed for decades to win that recognition.