On Sunday, June 19, 2022, Friday Night Hype observe both Father’s Day and Juneteenth, the nation’s youngest federal holiday. Officially recognized in 2021, it commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. On this day in 1865, America’s last enslaved people — a group in Texas — were notified that slavery had been made illegal and that they were free
The events leading to this historic day began with the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The document — released during the American Civil War (1861-1865) — freed millions of enslaved people in the 11 Confederate states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. But the law did not apply to the enslaved people in the border states that had remained loyal to the Union. This included Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland. The 13th Amendment — passed by the US Congress on January 31, 1865 — closed the loophole and abolished slavery across the nation.