June 19th is known as “Juneteenth,” also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day. Juneteenth commemorates the abolition of slavery in the state of Texas on June 19, 1865, a full two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which freed enslaved African Americans throughout the Confederate States of America. And on Thursday, Juneteenth was just made a federal holiday.