MIAMI (June 19, 2020) - FIU Athletics is proud to celebrate Juneteenth on Friday, June 19, in observance of the end of slavery in the United States.
Juneteenth commemorates the anniversary of June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas and proclaimed that slavery in the United States had ended and the Civil War was over.
The events in Galveston were two and a half years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation didn't have much impact on the Texans due to the low number of Union troops stationed in the state to enforce the new Executive Order.