Recognized as the day African-Americans celebrated the end of slavery. Though slavery was abolished with the defeat of the South in May 1865, slaves in Texas were not informed of slavery’s end until June 19, 1865, when Union General Granger issued Executive Order #3 to inform them. This Order was necessary because slavery was still enforced in Texas, and in fact slaveholders from other states in the Deep South moved to Texas with their slaves during the War. Juneteenth was first celebrated by blacks in Texas as ‘Jubilee Day’. Therefore, Juneteenth is the ONLY day which recognizes the end of three centuries of slavery in what later became the United States.