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Originally Posted by manaboutown
That would be The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863. June 19, 1865 was merely the day news of it reached some folks in Galveston, Texas.
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In 1903, a Black man walked into an office in a small town in Texas, seeking any news about whether slavery had ended. The inquiry from the man, who had been forced to labor without pay, came more than 38 years after Major Gen. Gordon Granger landed on Galveston Island, Texas, with more than 2,000 federal soldiers to deliver the belated news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas. Word of the end of bondage for the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state arrived on June 19, 1865 — two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Despite the clear instructions in General Order No. 3 and the announcement that day by Granger’s men that “the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free,” not every enslaved Black person in Texas was freed with that proclamation.
Enslavers across the state resisted the general’s order, hiding the news from enslaved Black people. Many Black people were forced to continue to labor under the oppression of ruthless enslavers and unscrupulous plantation owners. In some cases, enslavers killed enslaved Blacks rather than give them their freedom.
Slavery formally ended on Dec. 6, 1865 with ratification of the 13th Amendment which banned the existence of slavery and involuntary servitude in all states.