It’s Juneteenth everyone! Today is the day we commemorate the emancipation of enslaved Black people within the United States. Although the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1st, 1863, it wasn’t implemented in places still under Confederate control. As mentioned by the Smithsonian and Congressional Research Service , many enslavers also withheld information regarding the Emancipation Proclamation from their enslaved people and kept them captive after the announcement. It wasn’t until the Thirteenth Amendment took effect on January 31st, 1865, when all enslaved Black people within Texas and other Confederate States were declared free by executive decree. June 19th, 1865, is the day when approximately 2,000 Union soldiers and Major General Gordon Granger – a distinguished U.S. army officer and Union general – marched to Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of slavery and the Civil War. This was the day when all enslaved Black people across the nation officially ...