June 19, or Juneteenth, is the federal holiday which commemorates the day back in 1865 were federal troops made their way to Galveston, Texas, to tell the last group of slaves that they were finally free.
It was a moment more than two years in the making; in January 1863, then President Abraham Lincoln had signed the historic Emancipation Proclamation. According to the National Archives, the historic document said, “all persons held as slaves…are and henceforward shall be free.”
Over the weekend, The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Phoenix held its annual Juneteenth Celebration…