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The significance of Juneteenth

This weekend is Juneteenth. The holiday, celebrated on June 19, commemorates the day in 1865 when slavery effectively ended in the United States — a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

And this is the second Juneteenth since the government declared the day a federal holiday.

Here & Now’s Jane Clayson speaks with Hasan Kwame Jeffries, associate professor of history at Ohio State University, about the significance of Juneteenth.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.