Around the world, people know July 4 as America’s Independence Day—marking the date of the separation of the United States of America from the British Empire, with the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, 249 years ago. Millions of Americans were not free, however, and were not recognized in practice as having unalienable human rights.

On January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. The Proclamation announced President Abraham Lincoln’s military order that human enslavement be ended in the states waging war against the Union. As the Union Army recaptured more territory from the Confederacy, Union soldiers, including African-American soldiers, read the Emancipation Proclamation, spreading word of the end of human enslavement. 

In the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, more than 250,000 people were still enslaved more than two years later. 

On June 19, 1965—160 years ago today—2,000 United States Army soldiers arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. General Gordon Granger announced that it was now unlawful for anyone to enslave another human being. More than 250,000 enslaved people were now free, and the institution of human enslavement ended, formally, in the last place where Confederate leaders had tried to maintain that evil system.

Some of the border states that had not seceded from the Union continued to maintain the system of enslavement. Slavery was ended throughout the United States with the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

Because the border states were greatly outnumbered by the free states and the recaptured Confederate states, there were not enough border states to prevent the adoption of the 13th Amendment banning slavery, nor was it likely—after fighting a war to end slavery—that a small group of enslavers could have resisted the popular demand to end slavery and establish what Lincoln called “a new birth of freedom”. So June 19, 1865, is considered to be the day when it became impossible for human enslavement to continue.

So, June 19 is Freedom Day—the day when African Americans have long celebrated the end of human enslavement. It is also a date all of the people of the United States can celebrate becoming a country in which all human beings are treated as equal before the law, free beings from birth, endowed with unalienable rights.

That does not mean everyone experiences the practical reality of that legal protection. According to Angela Tate, Curator of African American Women’s History at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC):

“Juneteenth is a time to reflect. What does it mean to really celebrate our freedom? What does it mean to be free in moments where freedom is conditional and freedom is always a challenge? Juneteenth is a moment to think about freedom being conditional freedom, and it is something that we must continuously strive and fight for.” 

It is a time also to remember that the road to freedom was long, dangerous, and difficult, and that our everyday experience of being free people must never be taken for granted. Harriet Tubman was one of the people of inconceivable courage, who worked to free enslaved people before enslavement was made formally illegal. She recognized that this was dangerous work for both liberators like her and for those who dared to risk everything for liberation. As she once said:

“I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”

Just this week, former President Barack Obama reminded us that the defense of freedom occurs everywhere, at all levels, saying:

“There is extraordinary talent in every community… My optimism is not blind optimism. I’ve said before I don’t think progress goes in a straight line. There are times when you take two steps forward, and you take one step back; there are times when you take one step forward and take two steps back… But, if we are are willing to attach ourselves to that better story, in our own individual lives, in our communities, in our businesses, in our law firms, universities, and our places of worship, then I think that Good will win out.“

We are on the road to the founding ideal, together, working at it in our communities and in countless ways that together form the fabric of a free country.