Juneteenth celebration and march through Greenville, North Carolina, on June 19, 2021 (cc) City of Greenville. Juneteenth, the day many Black Americans celebrate to mark the end of enslavement in Confederate States, was codified as a national holiday by President Joe Biden in 2021. America’s newest national holiday commemorates the day that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned that they were free, a whole two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipate Proclamation in 1863.