Juneteenth, or Black Independence Day, as it is also called, is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.
Over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers led by MajGen Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, TX with news that the Civil War had ended and that all slaves were now free, insuring it with General Order No. 3.
149 years have passed since the inaugural Juneteenth and yet this holiday remains outside our history books and away from the cultural consciousness of this Republic. In accordance with other celebrations of Civil Rights such a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we the undersigned ask that this unique and pivotal moment of Human Rights in the United States be given recognition at a federal holiday.