On June 19, 1865, two months after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, Union General Gordon Granger and approximately 1,800 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. Granger read General Orders No. 3, which declared in part: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) is a holiday commemorating this day, which marked the effective end of slavery in the United States.

A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln, by David A. Adler (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, by David A. Adler (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
Emancipation Proclamation, by Tonya Bolden (Available as Audiobook & eBook on Hoopla)
Freedom Over Me, by Ashley Bryan (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
The Emancipation Proclamation, by Charles W. Carey Jr. (Available as eBook on Hoopla)
Juneteenth for Mazie, by Floyd Cooper (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
Let’s Celebrate Emancipation Day & Juneteenth, by Barbara Derubertis (Available as eBook on Hoopla)
Juneteenth, by Rachel Grack (Available as eBook on Hoopla)
Sewing Stories: Harriet Powers’ Journey from Slave to Artist, by Barbara Herkert (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
All Different Now, by Angela Johnson (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
Sarah Edmonds Was a Great Pretender: The True Story of a Civil War Spy, by Carrie Jones (Available as eBook on OverDrive & Hoopla)
Who Was Harriet Tubman?, by Yona Zeldis McDonough (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery, by William Miller (Available as eBook on OverDrive)
Emancipation Proclamation, by Ryan Nagelhout (Available as eBook on Hoopla)
La Proclamación de Emancipación, by Ryan Nagelhout (Available as eBook on Hoopla in SPANISH)
Juneteenth, by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Available as eBook on Hoopla)
The Story Behind Juneteenth, by Jack Reader (Available as eBook on Hoopla)
Juneteenth Jamboree, by Carole Boston Weatherford (Available as eBook on OverDrive)