Entry · catalog no. 1304
Juneteenth
/ /ˌdʒunˈtinθ/ /JOON-teenth
noun · Black Texan — Galveston and Houston first, carried out of Texas by migration and now observed nationwide · 1890s
✓ Verified
1.
June 19, marking the 1865 reading of the federal emancipation order at Galveston, Texas, and the annual commemoration that grew from it.
“They have been doing Juneteenth at Emancipation Park since before anybody's grandmother was born.”
2.
By extension, the general Black American emancipation holiday, federal since 2021.
“The whole office is closed for Juneteenth now, which is not what the people in Galveston had in mind.”
Origin & Attribution
Black Texan, and the word itself is a Black Texan coinage of the 1890s — a blend of June and nineteenth, made by people who had been calling the day Jubilee Day and Emancipation Day since 1866. Three dates are constantly collapsed into one and should not be: the event is 1865, the observance is 1866, and the word is 1890. The most durable myth is that Texas slaveholders deliberately suppressed news of the Emancipation Proclamation for two and a half years, or that a messenger was killed carrying it. There is no primary evidence for either. The documented reason is plainer: the 1863 Proclamation only took effect where Union forces could enforce it, and Texas was the last Confederate state occupied. Nor did June 19 end slavery in the United States — the Thirteenth Amendment did, on December 6, 1865. Galveston is where the order was read; recent peer-reviewed work traces the earliest known public procession to Houston in 1866, so first-celebration honors are contested rather than settled.
1865
General Orders No. 3 read at Galveston on June 19, informing the people of Texas that all slaves are free
1866
First annual commemoration; the earliest documented public procession is in Houston, led by two Black ministers
2021
The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act is signed on June 17, making June 19 a federal holiday
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Black Texan — Galveston and Houston first, carried out of Texas by migration and now observed nationwide · 1890s
Spoken by
Black Texans first, for more than a century almost alone; then Black Americans nationally, and since 2021 the whole country
$JUNETEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising136 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
88/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1890
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
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Citations & Sources
■
General Orders No. 3, District of Texas — military order, Galveston · 19 Jun 1865
Issued by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger; the original is held by the National Archives
■
Texas H.B. 1016, 66th Legislature — statute · 1979
Sponsored by Rep. Al Edwards; made Texas the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday, effective January 1, 1980
■
+ Cite a sourceW. Caleb McDaniel — "The First Juneteenth," Journal of Texas History 2:1 — journal · 2026
Traces the earliest known public observance to a June 19, 1866 procession through Houston led by ministers Elias Dibble and Sandy Parker
See also