06/19/2026
Do you know the history of ?
This national observance runs close to home for us, Texas residents. On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, declaring all enslaved people living within the rebellious Confederate states free.
Yet, due to Confederate control, enslaved Black Texans were not told about their freedom until June 19, 1865, when about 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced that more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were free.
More than 151 years later, in 2016, at 89 years old, Dr. Opal Lee conducted a 1,400-mile walk from Fort Worth, TX to Washington, D.C., to petition to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Her efforts contributed to Juneteenth officially becoming a federal holiday in 2021.
Juneteenth and Dr. Opal Lee’s perseverance for acknowledgement remind us daily of the power of education.
We here at Opportunity Rising hope you, too, learn about its history and use it as fuel to leverage education as a vessel for your future.
Source: National Juneteenth Museum and Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture