The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did not immediately emancipate all enslaved people. Issued in the middle of the Civil War that remains the nation’s bloodiest conflict, President Lincoln’s order covered the states that had seceded from the Union, but enslavers in places still under Confederate control did not liberate enslaved men, women, and children. There were other caveats to the proclamation as well, ones that kept people in the border states like Delaware in bondage.

On June 19, 1865, around 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, one of the farthest edges of the Confederacy. They had traversed across the South freeing enslaved people. When they arrived, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 that freed enslaved people in Texas.

Juneteenth over the years came to be celebrated by many Black communities in churches and at family gatherings across the country. A decade ago, Opal Lee, a Texas-based civil rights activist, began her quest to establish Juneteenth as a national holiday. President Biden signed the holiday into law in 2021.

This year, Juneteenth has been weighed down by the Trump administration’s efforts to erase Black history and undermine how Americans learn about historical facts and developments in national parks, schools, museums, and cultural institutions.