Juneteenth National Independence Day, to be celebrated in 2024 next Wednesday, June 19, became the newest federal holiday in 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. The holiday commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. 

A combination of the words June and nineteenth, Juneteeth recalls the events of a day more than two months after the end of the Civil War and more than two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. On that day in 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived on Galveston Island and informed all Texans, “… all slaves are free.”

BVA recognizes the significance of these historical events, both in the past and more recently, that led to the establishment of Juneteenth.