06/19/2023
In observance of , CoronadoDC will be closed Monday, June 19th, and will resume business as usual on Tuesday, June 20th.
To understand the meaning of this holiday, it helps to understand a few things about Civil War history. You might know that the American Civil War began on April 12th, 1861, and officially ended almost exactly four years later on April 9th, 1865; this was when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, Virginia. News traveled slowly and by letter in those days.
As a result, it wasn’t until two months afterward that Union General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas, with about 2,000 Union troops to inform the community that the war was over and African Americans could no longer be enslaved. He arrived on June 19th, 1865, and it’s on this day each year that Juneteenth is celebrated. Because it was the last place to learn the news, Galveston, Texas, is considered the true birthplace of Juneteenth.
