Remembering Juneteenth
A Milestone in the History of the United States
On June 19, 1865, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger performed a public reading of General Order Number 3:
“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 personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
This event is significant because, as the Confederacy lost ground in the final years of the American Civil War, many Southerners determined to hold onto their enslaved persons and a significant number retreated to Texas.
The Union army’s occupation of Texas signaled the absolute end of the Civil War and the liberation of these enslaved persons marked the fulfillment of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Not to mention the fulfillment of the promise of America’s founding ideals.
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