Juneteenth is the celebration of African American freedom and achievement and the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. The event dates back to June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Tex., with news that the war had ended and the enslaved were now free. This was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of Jan.