June 2026 Today’s a Holiday: Celebrating Juneteenth

Happy Juneteenth.

Today is a holiday. I hope you are commemorating this day in some way, though I was a bit disappointed with myself to realize this isn’t a holiday I know very much about.

The above image of the Juneteenth flag is new to me though I proudly share It with you here along with just a few bits of info to help all of us note this holiday with respect.

Juneteenth, or officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is an American holiday to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States. It just became an official Federal Holiday in 2021, though it has been celebrated, largely by the African-American community, since the June day in 1865 when the news of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation finally got to the last of America’s enslaved people in Texas – about two and half years after the signing on January 1, 1863.

According to Wikipedia, news of the freeing of the slaves in the Confederate states arrived in different parts of the country at different times, and Texas didn’t rejoin the Union until April 1865. So, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived at the port of Galveston, Texas on June 19, he announced that slavery had been ended.

One year later freed slaves in Texas celebrated the first Juneteenth on June 19, and it went on from there.

So far, I don’t know of celebrations that will go on in my town today, but I am determined to find out more.
You can also find out more at the website of The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

More next week on interviewing as many of us prepare for media interviews at the Christian Product Expo coming up in August.