If you’re wondering why people are calling for today, Juneteenth, to be a national holiday... you might only know part 1 of the “how slavery ended in America” story.

When white people talk about the end of slavery they usually think of…

And they’re not wrong … but they’re also not 100% right. Everyone thinks Abraham Lincoln ended slavery with the swish of his quill when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 (effective 1/1/1863).

But many southern states refused to free the enslaved for over two more years because The Civil War was still raging.

TL;DR: Slavery was still a thing for a long ass time after the Emancipation Proclamation.

What the proclamation did allow was for Lincoln to add Black troops to the Union army (North) in the fight against the Confederacy (South).

News didn’t travel back then like it does today. The last state to learn of the Union’s Civil War victory (and the very, very important updates to Civil rights in America), was Texas- where there were still 250,000 enslaved!

A group of enslaved Texans received the news of their freedom on June 19, 1865. And that’s why Black people have celebrated Juneteenth, aka “The Black Independence Day” for over 150 years.

If you’re wondering how you haven’t heard of a celebration that’s been going on for 150 years, or why we’re only taught a partial history of freeing those who were enslaved... that’s a conversation we need to have with our education system.

Black history is American history and that’s how it should be taught.