JUNETEENTH 2020

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. It is the day, June 19, 1865 when the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were now free. (This event occurred more than two and a half years after the date of January 1, 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation had become official.)null

Juneteenth, also known as “Freedom Day” or “Emancipation Day”, is a holiday created by Black people in the United States to honor, and celebrate African American ancestry, history, achievements, and struggles.

President Trump took credit for making Juneteenth “famous,” acknowledged there was “some” systemic racism in the country and said taking the names of Confederate soldiers off US military bases would split the country apart, in a wide-ranging interview published on Thursday.

The president said a black Secret Service agent told him the meaning of Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, is the commemoration of the end of slavery, after Trump had initially scheduled his return to the campaign trail for the first time in months at a rally in Tulsa, Ok., for that day.

He had faced criticism from African-American leaders for holding the political rally on Juneteenth, especially in Tulsa, where in 1921 mobs of white residents massacred black people in a commercial district known as the black Wall Street.