Juneteenth is observed annually in the United States on June 19. The federal holiday celebrates the historic journey that led to the end of slavery in the country. On this day in 1865, one of the last groups of enslaved people in the Confederate states — a group in Galveston, Texas — learned they were free. The events leading to this historic day began when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Released during the American Civil War (1861 — 1865), it declared enslaved people in ten Confederate states, including Texas, to be free. But Texas was far from the main battles. This made it easy for plantation owners to hide the news and keep forcing people to work. As a result, around 250,000 enslaved people in the state remained unaware of their freedom until June 19, 1865. On that day, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston and announced that slavery had ended. Later that year, in December 1865, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution made that freedom permanent by formally abolishing slavery across the country. The following year, on June 19, 1866, formerly enslaved people in Texas gathered to celebrate the first anniversary of their freedom. They marked the day with cookouts, dances, and prayers. Those gatherings became the foundation of Juneteenth. As the years passed, Juneteenth celebrations grew and spread. In 1980, Texas became the first state to officially recognize the holiday, also known as Emancipation Day. Over the following decades, more states followed suit. This growing recognition was encouraging. But it was not enough for Opal Lee. The Fort Worth, Texas, resident began pushing to make Juneteenth a national holiday in 1989. In 2016, at the age of 89, she led a symbolic walk from Fort Worth to Washington, DC. Lee walked 2.5 miles in each city along the route. The distance represented the nearly two and a half years it took for enslaved people in Texas to learn they were free. Lee's hard work paid off. On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a law making Juneteenth a federal holiday. It was the first new national holiday in the US since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1983. Lee, now 99, hopes it will bring Americans together. 'Juneteenth is not a Black thing, and it's not a Texas thing,' she says. 'People all over, I don't care what nationality, we all bleed red blood.'