NEW YORK — U.S. financial markets will observe the Juneteenth holiday for the first time on Monday. Last year, Juneteenth was designated a federal holiday to mark the effective end of slavery in the U.S.
Since June 19 falls on a Sunday this year, it will be observed on Monday.
On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers brought news to Black people who were still enslaved in Galveston, Texas that they were free.
That was two months after the Confederacy surrendered in the Civil War and about 2 ½ years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in Southern states.