Juneteenth marks the day on June 19, 1865, that Union soldiers told enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War had ended and they were free. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the South in 1863 but it was not enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Protesting the murder of George Floyd matters and is necessary. It brings awareness to the systemic racism, police brutality and violence against black people – though many wish to ignore and still choose to deny their existence.