Juneteenth celebration and closures in the Highland Lakes
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Juneteenth falls on Friday, June 19, this year, and many government offices, banks, post offices, and more will be closed in observance of the holiday. The community is also invited to a Juneteenth celebration and barbecue in Marble Falls.
Join St. Frederick’s Baptist Church 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 20, at Westside Park for a Juneteenth celebration. The event promises live music, food, and a Black history program.
“Come out, you will have a great experience,” St. Frederick’s Mission Outreach Ministry Director Bessie Jackson told DailyTrib. “This is our history, and by that I mean Texas history. It is about all of us.”
County government offices in Burnet and Llano counties will be closed, along with post offices. Most banks will likely be closed, as Juneteenth is a federal holiday.
Several city government offices will be closed, but some will remain open.
Closed:
- Marble Falls
- Granite Shoals
- Sunrise Beach Village
- Llano
- Highland Haven
Open:
- Horseshoe Bay
- Burnet
- Cottonwood Shores
- Meadowlakes
Juneteenth
This is the sixth year Juneteenth has been observed in the United States as a federal holiday. It has been a state holiday in Texas since 1979.
Juneteenth marks the day that enslaved people in Texas received word they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, 2½ years after the Civil War ended.
Texas was the last state to receive news of the emancipation of enslaved people at the close of the Civil War, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. Union troops landed in Galveston Bay on the Gulf Coast on June 19, 1865, declaring that all enslaved people were freed by executive order.
The freeing of the 250,000 slaves that remained in Texas on that day brought an official end to the institution of legal slavery in the United States.