Juneteenth commemorates the day emancipation reached enslaved people in the deepest parts of the South. It wasn't until June 19, 1865, two months after the end of the Civil War and more than two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, that Union Gen. Gordon Granger and more than a thousand U.S. troops went into Galveston, Texas and shared the news of freedom with the 250,000 enslaved people in the state .