It's official: Gov. George Pataki has signed legislation
establishing June 19 as "Juneteenth Freedom Day" in New York -- welcome
news for organizers of Saturday's local holiday celebration. Juneteenth
commemorates June 19, 1865, the day a Union Army general rode into
Galveston, Texas, to inform the last slaves that they were free -- more
than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation
Proclamation. [more]
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