AUSTIN, Texas – At the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865, 3.5 million enslaved Black Americans were freed. But even though the Emancipation Proclamation that ended slavery in the Confederacy had been issued several years earlier, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 – the day later known as “Juneteenth” – that word reached Texas when Union General Gordon Granger announced the order to the people of Galveston.