WASHINGTON, DC - Thousands of people marked Juneteenth at the National Archives’ East Side Rotunda Gallery to catch a glimpse of the rarely exhibited Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3., which informed enslaved people in Texas of their freedom in June 1865 and giving rise to the national holiday.
They are two of the most influential documents to discuss the freedom of enslaved Blacks in the U.S.
They are so fragile the National Archives normally keeps them in a climate-controlled vault for preservation.
But that could change.
On June 17, Colleen Shogan, the Archivist of the United States, announced a plan to display the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3 permanently. (Stars & Stripes 06/17/23) Thousands line up to see the Emancipation Proclamation and General Order No. 3 | Stars and Stripes
General Order No. 3 was an American legal decree issued in 1865 enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation to residents of Texas and freeing all remaining slaves. The general order was issued by Union General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, upon arriving at Galveston at the end of the Civil War and two and a half years after the original issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. The order, and Granger's enforcement of it, is the central event commemorated by the holiday of Juneteenth, which originally celebrated the end of slavery in Texas.
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