June 19, 2025 marks 160 years since the origin of Juneteenth, which commemorates the day the last group of enslaved people found out they had been freed, the USA Today website reports today (June 18, 2025).
Long a holiday in the Black community and now federally recognized, the celebrations kick off each June 19, allowing people to gather, dance, reenact pivotal moments in history, and more.
Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom and opportunity, said Sam Collins, who is on the trustee board for the Rosenberg Library in Galveston,Texas, often called "Professor Juneteenth."
"It's not so much about slavery as it is about the freedom from slavery and what it allowed the former enslaved people to live their lives free, to marry, to learn to read, to educate themselves, to have self--agency over their bodies, to keep their families together," he told USA Today.
In June 2021, then president Joe Biden declared June 19 a national holiday.
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