Today's Today

HAPPY JUNETEENTH, EVERYBODY

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln announced that the Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect on January 1, 1863, promising freedom to enslaved people in all of the rebellious parts of Southern states of the Confederacy including Texas.

Enforcement of the Proclamation generally relied upon the advance of Union troops. Texas, as the most remote state of the former Confederacy, had seen an expansion of slavery because the presence of Union troops was low as the American Civil War ended; thus, the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation had been slow and inconsistent there prior to Maj Gen Gordon Granger's order to fully enforce the Proclamation in Texas.

In all, June 19, 1865, was:

• 900 days after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect
• 71 days after Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union on April 9, 1865
• 24 days after the disbanding of the Confederate military department covering Texas on May 26, 1865

The arc of the moral universe is long,

but it bends toward justice.