Dr. Drake re Juneteenth

Juneteenth celebrates the day, June 19, 1865, when enslaved people still in bondage in Texas, on the western edge of the confederacy, were finally read the federal orders that legally freed them under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation was dated January 1, 1863, but only applied to slaves held in the confederacy and thus had no power of enforcement until the end of the Civil War. More.