Juneteenth 2025: Events, commemorations in the Houston area
Juneteenth: High school students travel back in time
High school students traveled back in time Tuesday, walking the same path many of their ancestors did in Fourth and Third Ward, giving them a glimpse of the past to write new chapters for the future.
HOUSTON - Juneteenth is this Thursday. Several events are being held in the Houston area to commemorate the day slaves in Galveston learned that they had been freed.
Juneteenth 160 - Freedom, Fireworks & Family
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Where: Menard Park, 2222 28th Street, Galveston
- Time: 3 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
The city of Galveston is hosting its first-ever major fireworks display to celebrate Juneteenth.
The celebration at Menard Park will start at three. It will end with fireworks around 9:30 p.m.
Juneteenth Parade and Picnic
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Time: 3 p.m.
Galveston will also hold a parade from Ball Street to Wright Cuney Recreation Center & Park.
The event will end with a picnic at the park.
The event is free and open to all.
The Official Juneteenth Return
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Where: Nia Cultural Center, 2217 The Strand, Galveston, Texas 77550
The Nia Cultural Center in Galveston is hosting an event that includes live dance performances, music and a curated art exhibition.
Juneteenth 160 Fest
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Where: Houston Freedmen's Town Visitor Center - 1204 Victor Street, Houston, Texas 77019
- Time: 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The Houston Freedmen's Town Conservancy is holding a celebration on Thursday.
There will be live music, performances, activities and a fireside chat with author Marc Lamont Hill.
Children's Museum Houston
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Where: Children's Museum Houston, 1500 Binz Street
- Time: 9 a.m.
Children's Museum Houston is hosting special events for Juneteenth.
There will be dance parties, drumming, visual tributes and activities for kids.
Savoy Juneteenth
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Where: The Savoy - 4402 Emancipation Ave, Houston, TX 77004
- Kids: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Adults: 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The Savoy in Houston will open its doors for free activities for the whole family, including pony rides, a petting zoo, face painting, a bounce house and more.
Juneteenth @160 Exhibition | Terms & Conditions: The Promise vs. Reality
- Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
- Where: University Museum at Texas Southern University, 3100 Cleburne St, Houston, TX 77004
- Time: 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The University Museum at Texas Southern University will take a look at Terms & Conditions: The Promise vs. Reality, a traveling contemporary art exhibition looking at the liberation of the enslaved and the "conditions" placed on Black freedom.
What is Juneteenth?
Boston, MA - June 14: A spectator holds noise makers and a Juneteenth flag, during the speaking program. The first Juneteenth Concert is held near The Embrace sculpture, on Boston Common. (Photo by Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed.
Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places in the South until the Civil War ended in 1865. Even then, some white people who had profited from their unpaid labor were reluctant to share the news.
Laura Smalley, freed from a plantation near Bellville, Texas, remembered in a 1941 interview that the man she referred to as "old master" came home from fighting in the Civil War and didn’t tell the people he enslaved what had happened.
"Old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free," Smalley said. "I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that day."
News that the war had ended and they were free finally reached Galveston when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Gulf Coast city on June 19, 1865, more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.
Granger delivered General Order No. 3, which said: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor."
Slavery was permanently abolished six months later, when Georgia ratified the 13th Amendment. And the next year, the now-free people of Galveston started celebrating Juneteenth, an observance that has continued and spread around the world. Events include concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.
What does Juneteenth mean?
It’s a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, second Independence Day and Emancipation Day.
It began with church picnics and speeches, and spread as Black Texans moved elsewhere.
The Source: Information in this article comes from event organizers and the Associated Press.