Celebrating Juneteenth with a poem by Maya Angelou
Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. Though President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation technically took effect on January 1, 1863, the true ending of slavery was not actually in effect until after the end of the Civil War in 1865. On June 19 of that year, Union Army General Gordon Granger announced federal orders in Galveston, TX, that all slaves held in Texas had been freed. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified that December 6th formally ending and forbidding all non-penal slavery everywhere in the United States. Continue Reading Celebrating Juneteenth with a poem by Maya Angelou
