A lot of people celebrated Juneteenth before the summer of 2021, but President Joe Biden last year declaring it a national holiday pushed this celebration of slavery's end into a much bigger spotlight. And Americans seem to still be struggling with what Juneteenth celebrations should mean.
Juneteenth—"America's other Independence Day"—marks the day in 1865 when enslaved black people in Galveston, Texas, learned that the Civil War had ended and they were officially free. Major General Gordon Granger delivered the news—some two months after the end of the Civil War and two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
