MID-HUDSON – Festivities will commemorate today, Juneteenth, across the Hudson Valley and Catskills as the nation marks the anniversary of the date back in 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to inform the state’s 250,000 enslaved people that they were free.
With no mass media, no internet, no television, those residents of Texas did not learn of their freedom until 2 ½ years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
While the initial news of freedom moved gradually across Texas, the date became the symbol of black resilience and achievement that has been celebrated by African American communities in varying ways since 1866.
Regionwide, cities and small communities alike will hold events on this national holiday.
The day serves as a reminder of the struggle for liberty and racial equality in America.
The bill designating June 19 annually as a federal holiday was signed into law on June 17, 2021.
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