You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

Ben Franklin's world is a dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people

and events of our early American past have shaped the present day world we live in.

And I'm your host, Liz Kovart.

Juneteenth is a holiday that celebrates and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.

We choose to reflect on the end of slavery in the United States on June 19,

because on June 19, 1865, United States General

Gordon Granger issued his General Order Number 3 in Galveston, Texas, informing Texans that

all slaves are free.

Now the way we study historical periods may make Juneteenth feel like it's a mid-19th century moment,

a moment that is beyond the scope of Ben Franklin's world.

But the end of slavery didn't just occur on one day

or at one time. It didn't even just occur in the mid-19th century. The fight to end slavery

was a long process that started during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Kiara Singleton is the executive director of the Royal House and Slave

Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts. She's also a historian who's finishing her doctoral degree in American culture

at the University of Michigan.

Kiera and her colleagues have spent years researching the lives of the enslaved people who lived and worked on the Royal

plantation and the significant contributions those people made to ending slavery in Massachusetts, which was the first

state in the United States to legally abolish slavery in 1783.

Now during our investigation of slavery and freedom in Massachusetts,

Kierer reveals the story of the Royal House and Slave Quarters and White is such a unique historic site.

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