The next year, former slaves started celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston, and it eventually reached other states.
Early Juneteenth celebrations were mostly cookouts or barbecues, said Robert Widell Jr., a professor of African American history at the University of Rhode Island and author of “Birmingham and the Long Black Freedom Struggle.”
Juneteenth celebrations eventually stretched beyond Texas, which was the first state to make it a holiday in 1980, as black people continued the tradition after moving out of state or overseas.
In Virginia, once home to the capital of the Confederacy, Gov. Ralph Northam moved to make Juneteenth an official holiday, giving executive branch employees a paid day off Friday and proposing legislation to make it a permanent state holiday.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo similarly designated Juneteenth a paid holiday for state employees and vowed to push legislation next year making it a permanent holiday.
