Juneteenth 2025: Events, commemorations across Central Texas

AUSTIN - Juneteenth is this Thursday. Several events are being held across Central Texas to commemorate the day slaves in Texas learned that they had been freed.

Central Texas Juneteenth Parade & Festival

• Date: Thursday, June 19
• Where: Rosewood Park, 2300 Rosewood Ave., Austin, TX 78702
• Time: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Central Texas Juneteenth Parade & Festival will feature floats, entertainment and food.

Afternoon and evening activities will be at the Rosewood and Boggy Creek Park.

The festival concludes with fireworks at 9 p.m.

Juneteenth Remembrance Ceremony

• Date: Thursday, June 19
• Where: George Washington Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina St, Austin, TX 78702
• Time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

A remembrance ceremony will be held to honor ancestors and come together in solidarity.

Citizens Memorial Cemetery Dedication and Historical Marker Unveiling

• Date: Thursday, June 19
• Where: Citizens Memorial Cemetery, 251 Memorial Drive
• Time: 10 a.m.

A dedication ceremony will be held at Georgetown's Historically African American and Hispanic cemetery.

The event will feature the unveiling of a new historical marker at 10 a.m.

Hella Free: The Juneteenth Function

• Date: Thursday, June 19
• Where: Empire Control Room, 606 E. 7th Street, Austin, TX 78701
• Time: 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Cat Records and the Austin Justice Coalition are holding the special event at Empire Garage.

The free event will have plenty of music and more.

You can get a free ticket here.

Together Vol 5: another Juneteenth House Music Boogie

• Date: Thursday, June 19
• Where: Central Machine Works Brewery & Beer Hall, 4824 E Cesar Chavez St, Austin, TX 78702
• Time: 7 p.m. to 12 a.m.

House musicians will play at Central Machine Works on Thursday.

The event will include music from DJ Shani, Matthieu Robert and Zero G.

There is no cover.

Juneteenth Celebraiton at Hotel Vegas

• Date: Thursday, June 19
• Where: Hotel Vegas & The Volstead Lounge, 1502 E 6th Street, Austin, Texas
• Time: Doors open at 6 p.m.

Performances will be held by Nubia Emmon, Geto Gala, The Teeta, Chakeeta B and Kydd Jones.

What is Juneteenth?

Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed.

Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places in the South until the Civil War ended in 1865. Even then, some white people who had profited from their unpaid labor were reluctant to share the news.

Laura Smalley, freed from a plantation near Bellville, Texas, remembered in a 1941 interview that the man she referred to as "old master" came home from fighting in the Civil War and didn’t tell the people he enslaved what had happened.

"Old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free," Smalley said. "I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that day."

News that the war had ended and they were free finally reached Galveston when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Gulf Coast city on June 19, 1865, more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

Granger delivered General Order No. 3, which said: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor."

Slavery was permanently abolished six months later, when Georgia ratified the 13th Amendment. And the next year, the now-free people of Galveston started celebrating Juneteenth, an observance that has continued and spread around the world. Events include concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

What does Juneteenth mean? 

It’s a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, second Independence Day and Emancipation Day.

It began with church picnics and speeches, and spread as Black Texans moved elsewhere.

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