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Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, is a nationwide celebration to commemorate the emancipation from slavery.
Juneteenth, is a combination of June and nineteenth, in honor of June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas, to inform a reluctant community that President Abraham Lincoln two years earlier had freed the slaves and to press locals to comply with his directive.
There is no one reason why there was a 2-plus-year delay in letting Texas know about the abolition of slavery in the United States, according to Juneteenth.com. The historical site said some accounts place the delay on a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news, while others say the news was deliberately withheld.