Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States celebrating the emancipation of African American slaves. The holiday has been called "America's second Independence Day".

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862. It went into effect on January 1, 1863, but slaves were not set free in Confederate states until the Union army arrived to take over. On June 18, 1865 the Union army arrived in Galveston, Texas. The next day, June 19th, Union General Gordon Granger announced that the slaves in Texas were free by order of the president of the United States.

According to the Texas Historical Commission and Galveston Historical Foundation, Granger's men marched throughout Galveston reading General Order No. 3--first at Union Army Headquarters at the Osterman Building (at the intersection of Strand Street and 22nd Street), then in the Strand Historic District. Next they marched to the 1861 Customs House and Courthouse before finally marching to the Negro Church on Broadway, since renamed Reedy Chapel-AME Church.

What followed became known as "the scatter", with droves of formerly enslaved people leaving the state to find family members or more welcoming accommodations in the northern states.

Despite the announcement, some slave owners resisted. There is one report of a Texas horse thief named Alex Simpson, whose enslaved people were only freed after his hanging in 1868.

Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. These celebrations quickly spread across the South, but waned during the era of Jim Crow laws. The holiday grew in popularity again during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, when it began to incorporate other activities such as rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth contests.

When Texas slaves were finally informed that they had been freed, they celebrated with everything red to symbolize the blood that had been shed in the struggle for freedom. These early celebrations featured watermelon, barbecue, red velvet cake, and strawberry soda, which had previously been reserved for slave owners. (According to other sources, red drinks made from hibiscus tea or kola nuts were always a part of festive celebrations in West Africa. Thus, strawberry soda simply became a stand in for those traditional teas.)

On June 19, 1866, one year after the announcement, freedmen in Texas organized the first of what became the annual celebration of "Jubilee Day". By the 1890s, Jubilee Day had become known as Juneteenth.

Ralph Ellison's novel Juneteenth was published posthumously in 1999, increasing recognition of the holiday. Publishers Weekly called the manuscript "a visionary tour de force, a lyrical, necessary contribution to America's perennial racial dialogue, and a novel powerfully reinforcing Ellison's place in literary history."

The bill passed through the Texas Legislature in 1979, and Juneteenth was officially made a state holiday on January 1, 1980.