Civil War, Emancipation and Juneteenth

Civil War, Emancipation and Juneteenth. , On the eve of the Civil War, the number of enslaved people in Texas totaled 30 percent of the state's population. This number continued to grow as slaveholders from other areas of the Confederacy came to Texas as refugees to escape the fighting and brought their enslaved property with them. Scholars estimate that more than, 30,000 enslaved people were brought into Texas during the Civil War years alone. The conflict did not readily change the Black experience in Texas, as most African-Americans continued to be held in bondage and forced to labor. , Federal troops occupied Texas in June 1865 after the Civil War. General Gordon Granger issued General Order Number 3 at Galveston on June 19, 1865 to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation previously signed by President Abraham Lincoln. That day soon became recognized as Juneteenth or Emancipation Day, although many slaves in Texas were not freed until much later. Juneteenth was officially declared a state holiday in Texas in 1980, and today it continues to be celebrated here and in other states as a milestone of the African-American struggle for freedom. , After Emancipation, the former slaves entered the new stage of freedom with a mixture of joy, despair, elation, fear, hope, doubt, certainty and confusion. With little social infrastructure other than their families, they sought to make their way in a nation and state they helped to create, but in which they had very little ownership, input or power.