Juneteenth, short for June Nineteenth, marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the freedom of enslaved people. This came two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had already declared them free.
The delay itself tells a story of suppressed information, deliberate resistance, and the long, complicated distance between a promise and its fulfillment.
That story is why Juneteenth is considered the longest-running African American holiday in the United States. Texas recognized it first, making it an official state holiday in 1979. The rest of the country caught up in 2021, when Juneteenth became a federal holiday…