In what is now known as Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865,
Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas with news
that the Civil War was over and slavery in the United
States is abolished.

A mix of June and 19th, Juneteenth has become a day
to commemorate the end of slavery in America. Despite
the fact that President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation was issued more than two years earlier on
January 1, 1863, a lack of Union troops in the rebel state
of Texas made the order difficult to enforce.        
        
       

The holiday is considered the "longest-running African-American holiday"^[ and has been called "America’s second Independence
Day."

On March 2, 1807, the U.S. Congress passes an act to “prohibit
the importation of slaves into any port or place within the
jurisdiction of the United States…from any foreign kingdom,
place, or country.” It would go into effect at the start of the
following year.

Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the
states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment is formally
adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that “neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

On or about August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped
by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony of Virginia and
are then bought by English colonists.

The exact date is not definitively known (a letter from the time
identified the ship’s arrival coming in "the latter part of August"),
but this date has been chosen by many to mark the arrival of the enslaved Africans in the New World—beginning two and a half
centuries of slavery in North America.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Book Cover First Edition.

Harried Beecher Stowe was an American author and abolitionist 
who came from the religious Beecher family and wrote the popular
novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which depicts the harsh conditions experienced by enslaved African Americans.

The book reached an audience of millions as a novel and play,
and became influential in the United States and in Great Britain,
energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while
provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30
books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections
of articles and letters. She was influential both for her writings
as well as for her public stances and debates on social issues
of the day.

Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe
(June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896)

Bust of Harriet Beecher Stowe at the hall
of fame for great Americans.