What is Juneteenth? Learn More About Holiday Celebrating End of Slavery

There's been a lot of talk about Juneteenth this year, and though President Trump's claim he made the holiday "very famous" is pure hyperbole ... it's true many people might need a cheat sheet.

The holiday -- which is also called Freedom Day, Liberation Day or Jubilee Day -- is the oldest celebration in America of the end of slavery, commemorating June 19, 1865.

That's the date Union General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and informed a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended ... and they were free.

Keep in mind, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had abolished slavery 2 and a half years earlier, but Texas was the most remote of the slave states and had a low presence of Union soldiers ... so enforcement was slow.

The first Juneteenth celebration went down in Texas the following year, marking the anniversary of the freeing of the last enslaved people in the Confederate South -- and began to spread across the South in the following decades.

Though popularity of the holiday has risen and fallen over the past century, Juneteenth has remained a constant cause for celebration.

Currently, June 19 is marked as a state holiday or observance by 47 states and Washington D.C., and now there's a renewed push to make it a federal holiday.

If you're looking for a deeper dive into Juneteenth, check out these articles:

So You Want to Learn About Juneteenth? (NY Times)

What is Juneteenth? (PBS)

What is Juneteenth? (WSJ)

History of Juneteenth (Juneteenth.com)