Juneteenth - Celebration and What is it?

Americans have been celebrating Juneteenth this weekend, the third year since the holiday was given federal status by President Biden in 2021.

The date commemorates the fall of slavery in Galveston, Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 to free enslaved Black people held in the Confederacy.

News of Union troops' victory over the Confederates spread slowly across the South, eventually reaching the shores of Galveston in 1865.

"We are not celebrating the history of Juneteenth. We are celebrating the symbolism of Juneteenth," said Leslie Wilson, professor of history at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

"The symbolism of Juneteenth is the transition from slavery to freedom."

Celebrations of the holiday started out regionally in Texas, but as Black Americans spread out across the United States, they brought their traditions with them, including remembrances for one of the final vestiges of chattel slavery.

"You could say that Juneteenth had a renaissance, largely because when World War II was over and soldiers came home, it was the second Great Migration. People started traveling from various points in the South to points in the north and points in the West," Wilson said.

"During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, with Civil Rights and also with the Black Power movement, Juneteenth became a symbol of strength as well as a symbol of triumph for African-Americans."

Widespread recognition of the holiday was slow moving. For years, it was a relatively obscure holiday celebrated among Black people with little acknowledgment or understanding from outside cultures and communities.