Juneteenth history: Why doesn’t everyone know about Texas?

Juneteenth, which combines the words June and nineteenth, is an unofficial national holiday marking the day Major General Gordon Granger of the Union army read federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. The proclamation stated that all slaves in Texas were now free. Readers who know their history also know that this official proclamation came two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which became official on Jan. 1, 1863.