Friday is Juneteenth

Friday, June 19, 2026, is a federal holiday in the United States. Government offices will be closed. Retail businesses, for the most part, will be open, just as they stay open for several of the federal holidays.

On June 19, 1865, federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. This, however, was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect January, 1863. This day, the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, has become a day for African Americans to celebrate not only their freedom, but their history, culture and achievements.

"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." -- Leviticus 25:10

"Juneteenth reminds us of both the unimaginable injustice of slavery and the incomparable joy that must have attended emancipation. It is both a remembrance of a blight on our history and a celebration of our Nation’s unsurpassed ability to triumph over darkness…. This Juneteenth, we commit, as one Nation, to live true to our highest ideals and to build always toward a freer, stronger country that values the dignity and boundless potential of all Americans."

-- Presidential Message on Juneteenth, 2020, President Donald J. Trump

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The final proclamation was first printed in January 1863, as a two-page broadsheet with the printed signatures of Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Later, a limited edition of forty-eight copies was printed. They were signed in pen by Lincoln, Seward, and Lincoln's secretary, John G. Nicolay, the copies were donated to raise money for the group that later became the Red Cross. About twenty known copies of the document have survived in public and private hands. Number 32 of this 48-copy edition is at the Boston Athenaeum on Beacon Street. I had the great pleasure of viewing it at a January 20, 2009, Athenaeum event to watch the Inauguration of President Barack Obam