Juneteenth marks the date of June 19, 1865, when enslaved citizens of Texas were finally declared free from bondage, a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. African Americans observed Emancipation Day, as Juneteenth was first known, as early as 1866, in Galveston, Texas. As community gatherings grew across Texas, celebrations included parades, prayer, singing, and readings of the proclamation. Since 1979, Juneteenth has been a state holiday in Texas, but the push to make the holiday federally observed only succeeded in the wake of the nationwide protests of police violence in 2020. In the summer of 2021, Congress quickly pushed through legislation with bipartisan support to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.