In 2021, when President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday, it was the first many people in the country had heard of the centuries-old tradition – a 2021 Gallup poll found that 34% of Americans knew “a little” about Juneteenth, while 28% knew nothing at all about it.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which ended slavery in some Confederate states. Union soldiers, including some Black soldiers who themselves were formerly enslaved, traveled around the south to announce the order.
