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1. What is #Juneteenth? Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. On JUNE nineTEENTH, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas. 
2. They brought news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free—two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Today it remains as the most popular annual celebration of emancipation in the African American community.
3. On that day in Galveston (then Texas’ largest city), General Granger issued General Order Number 3 (pictured below), which began: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. ...
4. “This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.”
5. Juneteenth, a celebration of freedom, is therefore an appropriate time not only to remember the past, but also to pray and labor for a future when that promised “absolute equality” of African Americans will be more fully manifest in our nation and our churches.
