The United States celebrated Juneteenth, a federal holiday established to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved black people at the end of the Civil War, for the fourth time on Wednesday (June 19) nationwide.

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday. The bill takes effect immediately.

The original English word “Juneteenth” of Juneteenth is the combination of “June” and “Nineteenth”, that is, “June” and “19th”. On June 19, 1865, U.S. Army Major General Gordon Granger marched into Galveston, Texas, and informed approximately 250,000 enslaved people that there was a conflict between the Union Army and the Confederacy. After four years of state fighting and winning, they had gained their freedom.

Granger’s order implemented the Emancipation Proclamation signed by then-President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, which freed more than 3 million enslaved black people throughout the Confederacy. But it didn’t really take effect until after the war ended and the Confederacy surrendered.

Over the next century, the black community commemorated the day in civil celebrations as the day slavery truly ended. Juneteenth was first officially celebrated in 1980, when Texas declared Juneteenth a state holiday. Other communities across the United States gradually began to observe the observance as a public holiday, and eventually, all 50 states and the nation’s capital, Washington, now celebrate Juneteenth in some form.

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement against racism and police brutality, calls for Juneteenth to be designated a federal holiday have further intensified, especially after the death of African American George Floyd in 2020 After George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis police officer.

“I would really like to see Juneteenth classes added to public education,” Hopkins said. “In Texas and many states across the country, they have what they call ‘Celebrate Freedom Week,’ where they study foundational documents like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Why not add Proclamation 3 to it?” (General Order No. 3), to get students to really think about what freedom means in different contexts and to different people in our great country.”

General Order 3 was the 1865 law that ended slavery in Texas.

Much of the success in rallying support for Juneteenth as a national holiday goes to Opal Lee, a retired black teacher and activist known as “Juneteenth Grandma.” As a child, she witnessed a group of 500 white supremacists destroy and burn down her family’s house.

In 2016, at the age of 89, she started a walking movement, starting from her hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and walking hundreds of kilometers to the capital, Washington, D.C., calling for Juneteenth to be designated a federal holiday. Her efforts became a reality in 2021, when President Biden signed legislation passed by Congress establishing Juneteenth as the 11th national holiday.

In a statement, Biden called Juneteenth this year a “day of remembrance,” saying Juneteenth “marks not only the end of America’s original sin of slavery, but also the beginning of the work at the heart and soul of our country: making America Promises to every American come true.”