Juneteenth celebration in Texas

This photograph from June 19, 1900, shows an African American band celebrating the end of slavery. The Black community would embrace Juneteenth (“June” plus “nineteenth”)—the date when the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 and announced freedom two and a half years after emancipation—as a day to rejoice freedom’s arrival. Today, annual celebrations continue across the country.