5 Juneteenth Celebrations

Plan a seriously fun trip that’s rooted in history.

- By Ronny Maye

JUNETEENTH WAS AROUND long before it was named a federal holiday in 2021. For more than a century, Black Americans have celebrated this day with families, friends, neighbors, and religious groups to commemorate the abolishment of slavery, acknowledge its tragedies, and honor the pursuit of freedom for all. Now more and more people from other cultural backgrounds are participating, and the celebrations are getting bigger.

If you're looking to join the festivities, here are five cities that helped bring the holiday the attention it deserves.

Galveston, Texas

Head to the birthplace of Juneteenth, which marks the date (June 19, 1865) when the Union Army general Gordon Granger and his troops read General Order No. 3 throughout the city, informing the people enslaved in Texas that they were free. (The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, but it took years for word to reach all enslaved people, as enslavers often kept the news to themselves.) In honor of that day, Galveston hosts a yearly reading of the Emancipation Proclamation at the historic Ashton Villa mansion, one of the locations where the order was announced.

Plan to be there on June 19 by 10 a.m., and give yourself time to check out And Still We Rise... Galveston's Juneteenth Story, a long-running exhibit that details the city's history ($10 for adults, $5 for kids; children 5 and under are free).