A flag flies on a float during the 45th annual Juneteenth National Independence Day celebrations.
Today marks Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.
It honors the moment — on June 19, 1865 — that Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that over 250,000 enslaved people were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln, which declared slaves in Confederate states were free.
It became a federal holiday in 2021 when then-President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Does how you celebrate Juneteenth matter if you aren't Black?
You can honor Juneteenth even if you are not Black, Karida Brown, a sociology professor at Emory University, told the Associated Press.
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