Every year, on June 19, Black people in America celebrate their independence or Emancipation Day AKA Juneteenth. The holiday commemorates the moment when news that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation hit the Confederate states. Even though Lincoln delivered that address on January 1, 1863, declaring that all people being held as slaves “henceforward shall be free,” that message was deliberately withheld from many Black Americans, as some slaveholders were not willing to communicate the news. Once General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate States Army, resigned and Union General Gordon Granger was given command of the District of Texas, Granger made an effort to enforce Lincoln's orders. On June 19, he issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas citing that “in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”