Descendants of America’s last slaves celebrated Juneteenth by sprucing up their ancestors’ graves at a historic black cemetery in Carrollton, Texas. On June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas were the last slaves to be freed at the end of America’s Civil War. Although President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing American slaves on September 22, 1862, many states, including Texas, refused to recognize the end of slavery until forced to do so. Slavery remained prevalent in East Texas until  June 19, 1865, when Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 federal troops to enforce emancipation. First celebrated in Texas in 1980, Juneteenth has become a nationwide celebration of that historic event.

Founded in the late 1800s, the historic Carrollton, Texas cemetery is the final resting place of Carrollton’s earliest black settlers. The stones and wooden crosses that mark many of those earliest gravesites are old and faded but still visible, although many markers were washed away in the 1960 flooding of the Trinity River. The final burial at the cemetery took place in 1960, but the families and friends of those buried in Carrollton continue to visit the cemetery, care for its graves and remember the sacrifices of their ancestors.