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(olwl <br /> COMMISSIONERSORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF <br /> PROCLAMATION RECOGNIZING JUNETEENTH 2023 <br /> WHEREAS , Juneteenth is a celebration of the date , June 19 , 1865 , when people who were <br /> enslaved in Texas were informed that the US government had officially outlawed the brutal <br /> practice of slavery , three years prior with the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation ; <br /> and <br /> WHEREAS , the Emancipation Proclamation issued on January 1 , 1863 declared that the <br /> people who were enslaved in Confederate - controlled areas were officially free people (state <br /> action was used to abolish slavery in areas controlled by Union forces with the exceptions of <br /> Kentucky and Delaware where slavery was finally ended by the Thirteenth Amendment in <br /> December 1865 ) ; and <br /> c <br /> WHEREAS , isolated from both Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War , Texas G <br /> had become a refuge for those who wished to continue the practice of holding human beings <br /> as property ; and <br /> WHEREAS , since the capture of New Orleans in 1862 , people who held human beings as <br /> property in Mississippi , Louisiana and other points east had been migrating to Texas to <br /> escape the Union Army' s reach and more than 150 , 000 people held in bondage had been <br /> moved to Texas ; and the White people of Texas actively worked to ensure that the people <br /> held in bondage , who should have been freed in 1863 , did not hear of the freedom granted <br /> by the Emancipation Proclamation ; and j <br /> i <br /> WHEREAS , although the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1 , 1863 , there <br /> were still a total of 250 , 000 people held as human chattel in Texas when U . S . Army General <br /> Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston , Texas and on June 19 , 1865 — Juneteenth — <br /> proclaimed the war had ended and so had the captivity of people who had been enslaved ; <br /> and <br /> WHEREAS , the following is the text of the official recorded version of the order : <br /> " The people of Texas are informed that , in accordance with a proclamation from the <br /> Executive of the United States , all slaves are free . This involves an absolute equality of 4 <br /> personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves , and the <br /> connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired <br /> labor . The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages . <br /> They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will <br /> not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere . " ; and <br /> WHEREAS , although news of emancipation came at different times during that Texas <br /> summer and autumn 1865 , African Americans in Texas started to celebrate the freedom of <br /> enslaved persons on June 19 ( Juneteenth ) as their day of celebration ; and <br /> WHEREAS , beginning in 1866 , they held parades , barbecues , and gave speeches in <br /> remembrance of their liberation . The oldest of the surviving formerly enslaved people were <br /> often given a place of honor and Black Texans initially used these gatherings to attempt to <br /> locate family members from whom they had been separated and soon these events became <br /> staging areas for family reunions and an opportunity to uplift each other as they moved <br /> through hostile environments ; and <br />