A View of Galveston, the Birthplace of Juneteenth. This image of Galveston was taken by the Expedition 67 crew aboard the International Space Station as it orbited 224 miles above. Though President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, many enslaved African Americans remained unaware of this executive order for an additional two and a half years. On June 19, 1865, Union troops read out General Order No. 3 at several locations throughout Galveston, Texas, announcing the end of legalized slavery and spreading the news of freedom. That day of liberation became known as Juneteenth, the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. This image of Galveston was taken by the Expedition 67 crew aboard the International Space Station on June 20, 2022, as it orbited 224 miles above. Photo Credit: NASA :: [Robert Scott Horton]
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Notably, in the 1936-1938 federal Slave Narrative project, emancipated freeman and San Antonio-born Felix Hayward remarked: "There wasn't no reason to run up north… All we had to do was to walk, but walk south, and we'd be free as soon as we crossed the Rio Grande."
Felix Hayward quoted in an article by Isaiah Reynolds at Insider. In the mountains of Northern Mexico, descendants of formerly enslaved people have celebrated Juneteenth, or 'Día de los Negros,' for over a century
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