My wife was showing me some literature for a couple of upcoming 'Juneteenth' events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Neither of us had heard the term before; I figured it was something vaguely Shakespearean that occured on the something-teenth of June. But the literature we saw used the term as if it was a familiar day like Christmas or Labor Day.
I guess I'm an ignoramus because apparently it's been around for a long time. I found this on the history page at juneteenth.com:
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.
Well, you learn something new every day. In any case, I'll be at our local festival in Alameda, California!