On June 19, 1865, Union troops freed enslaved African Americans in Galveston Bay and across Texas some two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer."
Gordon Granger
Union General, June 19, 1865
A rare early moving picture shows a Juneteenth 1925 celebration in Beaumont, Texas.
Solomon Sir Jones Films. Yale Digital Library.
