The Emancipation Proclamation was legally put into effect on January 1, 1863. Because many southern states were still under confederate control, the proclamation could not be enforced everywhere and many black people remained enslaved. On June 19, 1865, two years after the 13th amendment abolishing slaverly was adopted, Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas and announced to over 250,000 enslaved people that they were free. The holiday known as Juneteenth was celebrated annually as early as 1866 and was made a federal holiday in 2021.

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