June 18, 2025.

Today is the federal holiday honoring Juneteenth, the celebration of the announcement in Texas on June 15,

that enslaved Americans were free.

That announcement came as late as it did, because while General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia

to General Ulysses S. Grant of the U.S. Army on April 9, 1865, it was not until June 2nd that General Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Trans-Mississippi

Department, the last major army of the Confederacy to the United States in Galveston, Texas.

Smith then fled to Mexico. 17 days later, Major General Gordon Granger of the U.S. Army arrived to take charge of the soldiers stationed in Texas.

On that day, June 19th, he issued General Order Number 3.

It read,

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with the proclamation from

the executive of the United States, all slaves are free.

This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former

masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them

becomes that between employer and hired labor.

Granger's order referred to the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863,

which declared that Americans enslaved in states that were in rebellion against the United

States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. And the executive government of the United States,

including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons.

Granger was informing the people of Galveston that, Texas having been in rebellion on January 1, 1863,

their world had changed. The federal government would see to it that, going forward, white people and

black people would be equal. Black people in Galveston met the news order number three

brought with celebrations in the streets, but emancipation was not a gift from white Americans. Black Americans had fought and died for the United States.

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