The Detroit Lions have joined a growing number of sports teams not only observing but establishing Juneteeth as an organizational holiday.
Juneteeth is the commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger and the Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce the Civil War was over and the 250,000 enslaved people were free.
That happened a full two and half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1853. There was little Union presence in Texas until Granger arrived and read to the people General Orders No.