(Today is Juneteenth)…It is not a holiday.

It is a major celebration. Possibly the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery. On June 19th, 1865, Union Soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that enslaved people were now free. That was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation which became official on January 1, 1863. Why it took so long is up for debate. Juneteenth is celebrated across the nation. In Imperial County the celebration was last weekend in El Centro.