New Delhi, June 19 -- The Juneteenth National Independence Day falls on June 19, and on this day in 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with 2,000 troops to enforce the emancipation of 250,000 enslaved Black people.

This came two and a half years after President Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, delayed by Texas's remote location and resistance to ending slavery. While the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery nationwide, June 19 became a symbolic "Independence Day" for Black Americans.

In 2021, after decades of advocacy led by activists like Opal Lee, Juneteenth became the US's newest federal holiday. President Biden, during his tenure, declared this as a new federal holiday, and America's ...