Despite the Juneteenth announcement that they were free, some enslaved people were still held captive.

Juneteenth celebrates the day that the last enslaved people were notified of the Emancipation Proclamation, 2 years after it was signed.

The 13th Amendment permanently abolished slavery in the United States

Ratified in December 1865, the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery nationwide except as punishment for a crime. Southern states were required to ratify it under President Andrew Johnson's initial Reconstruction plan before regaining representation, though Congress later imposed stricter conditions.

The origins and growth of the Juneteenth holiday

The American holiday of Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of African American slaves, a process which unfolded over the four years of the Civil War and several months afterward. June 19 took on special significance as the day Union officials proclaimed slaves free in Texas in 1865, the last holdout after the Civil War ended. Roughly 4 million people were freed from slavery as a result of emancipation. Read this brief article summarizing the holiday's development.

The Emancipation Proclamation shifted the purpose of the war for the Union

Issued on Jan. 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people in Confederate-held territory free, redefining the Union's cause from merely preserving the nation to abolishing slavery.

The news delivered on the original Juneteenth freed enslaved people in Texas, but it also offered vague guidance on what they should do next.

As Juneteenth celebrations spread throughout the country, they sometimes went by different names and took place on different days.

The 13th Amendment's criminal exception enabled new forms of forced labor

Southern states exploited the amendment's clause allowing slavery "as punishment for crime" to arrest thousands of Black Americans on minor charges, leasing them to private employers through convict labor systems that persisted for decades.

The Reconstruction Amendments aimed to rebuild the nation and secure freedom after slavery

Ratified between 1865 and 1870 after the conclusion of the war, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed citizenship and equal protection, and extended voting rights to Black men—transforming the Constitution's definition of liberty and equality.

Read the original handwritten General Order 3, the proclamation from the first Juneteenth that declared the end of slavery.

Most Confederate soldiers and leaders after the Civil War were pardoned

After surrender, most Confederate soldiers were pardoned and returned home, while leaders like Jefferson Davis faced short imprisonment. The South came under military occupation, Confederate money became worthless, and many former officers were barred from public office.

Later in life, Washington privately grew critical of slavery—while continuing to uphold it publicly

His private letters increasingly described slavery as unjust and incompatible with Republican ideals, and his final will ordered the eventual emancipation of those he legally owned. At the same time, he enforced slave labor, signed pro-slavery laws, and took no public action to dismantle the system.

Slavery in the US: a timeline

In 1619, a ship with 20 captives landed at Point Comfort in Virginia, ushering in the era of American slavery. Scroll through this timeline to learn more about slavery in the US and its long lasting effects.

11 states formed the Confederacy, with 2 others claiming allegiance

Between December 1860 and June 1861, 11 Southern states officially seceded to form the Confederacy. Pro-Confederate factions in Missouri and Kentucky also declared secession, but both states remained largely under Union control throughout the war.

The Dred Scott decision denied citizenship to people of African descent

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Black Americans could not be US citizens. The decision heightened an already brewing conflict and became a key factor in pushing the nation toward civil war.

The abolitionist movement long predated the Civil War

Beginning in the late 18th century, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth campaigned through newspapers, lectures, and political action to end slavery.

What's the role of forced prison labor in a land where slavery is illegal?

Companies across the South profited off the forced labor of people in prison after the Civil War. This hourlong investigative podcast episode explores the role forced (and often unpaid) prison labor has played in the US since slavery was abolished.

In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln rapidly expanded presidential power

Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, expanded the army without congressional approval, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation—despite likely lacking authority to unilaterally alter national slave law. His actions set precedents for expanded presidential power in wartime.

John Marshall owned enslaved people and ruled against them in slavery cases

Though Marshall wrote that slavery was "contrary to the law of nature," he enslaved nearly 200 people at his death in 1835 and ruled against enslaved claimants in several cases. His will offered conditional emancipation to Robin Spurlock, his first slave.

Hear how the world reacted to the American Civil War

European nations closely watched the Civil War for its economic and political consequences. Some European nations quietly engaged diplomatically with the Confederacy but withheld recognition. When the Union made slavery's abolition a central cause, European public opinion turned sharply against the South.

The South was placed under federal military rule during Reconstruction

Beginning in 1867, the Reconstruction Acts divided 10 former Confederate states into five military districts, each governed by a Union general. Federal troops supervised elections, enforced civil rights, and maintained order under direct congressional authority.

One of the earliest Memorial Day ceremonies was held by newly freed Black Americans in South Carolina

On May 1, 1865, roughly 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around a Charleston racetrack where Union prisoners had been buried, predating the first national commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery by three years.

Abraham Lincoln's victory in 1860 sparked Southern secession—even before his inauguration

Abraham Lincoln's election on an antislavery expansion platform convinced many Southerners that their way of life was under threat. Within three months, seven states seceded from the Union—forming the Confederacy—before Lincoln took office in March 1861.

Southern Black Codes sought to preserve prewar racial labor structures

With little federal oversight, Southern states enacted laws effectively reestablishing slavery's economic and social order. These laws, known as the "Black Codes," restricted freed people's movement, labor, and property rights.

According to Confederate leaders, the defense of slavery was the primary reason for secession

Confederate leaders cited slavery as the reason for secession. Vice President Alexander Stephens called it the Confederacy's "cornerstone," built on "the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man."

The 14th Amendment aimed to guarantee citizenship for formerly enslaved people

The 14th Amendment was crafted to overturn Dred Scott by granting birthright citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their descendants, securing their legal status under federal law.

Support for slavery helped drive Texas to revolt against Mexico

Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, but many Anglo-American settlers in Texas brought enslaved people and refused to comply. Their desire to preserve slavery was a major factor in Texas’s 1836 rebellion and independence from Mexico.

Lincoln's original reconstruction vision prioritized reconciliation

Proposed in 1863, Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan offered lenient readmission for Southern states once 10% of voters pledged loyalty and ended slavery. It was adopted in a few Union-occupied areas but was only partially implemented before his assassination in 1865.

Approximately 180,000 African Americans served in Union forces

About 180,000 Black soldiers—roughly 10% of the Union army—served in the United States Colored Troops after 1863. Despite lower pay and discrimination, they were crucial to the Union victory.

The 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote nationwide

Ratified in 1870, the 15th Amendment prohibited federal and state governments from denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude—enfranchising millions of Black men.

Southern states enacted voting restrictions aimed at circumventing Reconstruction

After 1877, former Confederate states passed poll taxes, literacy tests, property requirements, and grandfather clauses to disenfranchise Black voters—restrictions that remained in place for nearly a century until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The end of Reconstruction paved the way for Jim Crow segregation

After federal troops withdrew in 1877, white Democrats regained control of Southern governments, dismantled Reconstruction reforms, and imposed segregation laws. By the 1890s, Jim Crow statutes had entrenched racial discrimination and Black disenfranchisement across the South.

Abolitionists shaped American history from the Revolution to the Civil War

Abolitionists of all backgrounds organized against slavery from the founding era onward. Historian Manisha Sinha argues that their decades of activism fundamentally shaped American democracy and made emancipation possible.

The Civil War permanently strengthened federal power

The Civil War expanded federal power through emancipation, national military mobilization, and postwar civil rights laws, permanently strengthening the national government and shifting the balance of authority away from the states.

Was the Civil War really about states' rights?

The Civil War was fought over slavery, and Confederate leaders and supporters admitted as much in the build-up to the war and after. But later on, after the South's defeat, the lie of the Lost Cause was pushed—and it persists to this day. This four-minute video details the story of the Lost Cause, "state's rights", Confederate monuments, and the machinations behind them.

Formerly enslaved people in Houston purchased a plot of land in Houston in 1872 so they could have a place to celebrate Juneteenth.

US westward expansion—and the status of slavery in the new territories—was a major cause of the American Civil War

The addition of new western lands forced the nation to confront whether slavery would spread beyond the South. Each debate over the admission of a new state sharpened the divide between free and slaveholding regions.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade brought over 10 million enslaved people to the Americas

During the Atlantic slave trade (1526-1867), about 12.5 million Africans were forced onto ships; only 10.7 million survived to reach the Americas. Fewer than 400,000 arrived in what became the United States—the rest were taken to the Caribbean or Latin America.

What was life like as a slave in the US?

Over 2,500 former slaves were interviewed by writers and journalists in the late 1930s as part of the US Federal Writer's Project. The collection recorded images and firsthand verbal accounts of life as a slave, eight of which are highlighted in this article at the Library of Congress. See the humanity in each of these individuals with their firsthand accounts.

Radical Reconstruction began in response to the lenient policies of Andrew Johnson

In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts—overriding Johnson's vetoes—placing the South under military rule and requiring new state constitutions, Black male suffrage, and ratification of the 14th Amendment before readmission.