Juneteenth 2025: Events, commemorations across North Texas

Juneteenth is this Thursday. Several events are being held across North Texas to commemorate the day slaves in Texas learned that they had been freed.

Opal's Walk for Freedom

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: Farrington Field, 1501 University Drive, Fort Worth, Texas
• When: 9 a.m.
• Registration

Opal Lee, the Grandmother of Juneteenth, will take part in her annual 2.5-mile walk to recognize the two and a half years it took for the news of emancipation to reach the enslaved people of Texas.

Lee campaigned for Juneteenth to be named a federal holiday and attended the then-President Biden's signing of the Juneteenth Independence Day Act.

The walk will begin at Farrington Field in Fort Worth.

Lee, 98, was recently hospitalized. She still plans to participate in the walk from a golf cart.

African American Museum of Dallas

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: 3536 Grand Avenue, Dallas, TX

The only known remaining, the original Juneteenth General Order No. 3, will go on exhibit at Fair Park's Hall of State on June 19. 

The Dallas historical society says their founder, a Galveston newspaperman, G.B. Dealey, brought this original copy of General Order No. 3 to Dallas, when he moved here from Galveston to start the Dallas Morning News.

Executive director, Karl Chiao, says Dealey's family donated the hand bill to the historical society in the 1960's.

The exhibit will be open to the public, starting with a panel discussion here on Thursday, June 19 at 6:30 pm. 

A celebration will also be held on Saturday, June 21, 2025 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum - 300 N. Houston, Dallas, TX

The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum will have free admission on Thursday.

There will be programming throughout the day, including speakers, tours, film screenings and more.

Juneteenth Golf Classic

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: Golf Club of Dallas - 2200 W Red Bird Ln, Dallas, TX 75232
• When: 7 a.m.

The Juneteenth Golf Classic, presented by the Dallas Mavericks, looks to uplift the Dallas community by promoting Black-owned businesses through golf.

Golf Club of Dallas is the city's only Black-owned golf course.

Morney Berry Farm: Back to the Roots Celebration

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: 9455 Lancaster Hutchins Road, Hutchins, Texas
• When: 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Morney Berry Farm has been the site of Juneteenth celebrations for more than 30 years.

Former slaves James and Kathy Morney purchased the farm in 1876.

Organizers say there will be live music, performances and food.

Freedom Vibes 2025 "Uniting Voices" Speaker Series

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: IM Terrell High School, Fort Worth, TX
• When: 3 p.m.

Ambassador Andrew Young will speak at IM Terrell High School in Fort Worth on Juneteenth.

Young, a key strategist during the Civil Rights Movement, helped lead efforts like the marches in Selma and Montgomery.

A concert will also be held at Bass Performance Hall.

Sacred Ground: The Legacy Beneath Lewisville 

• Date: Thursday, June 19, 2025
• Where: Lewisville Grand Theater, 100 N. Charles Street
• When: 7:30 p.m.

A documentary-style film will premiere at the Lewisville Grand Theater.

The movie tells the story of the Hembry and Champion families.

The city says the film will focus on the contributions of Black families who shaped Lewsiville's foundation.

What is Juneteenth?

Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed.

Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places in the South until the Civil War ended in 1865. Even then, some white people who had profited from their unpaid labor were reluctant to share the news.

Laura Smalley, freed from a plantation near Bellville, Texas, remembered in a 1941 interview that the man she referred to as "old master" came home from fighting in the Civil War and didn’t tell the people he enslaved what had happened.

"Old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free," Smalley said. "I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that day."

News that the war had ended and they were free finally reached Galveston when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Gulf Coast city on June 19, 1865, more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

Granger delivered General Order No. 3, which said: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor."

Slavery was permanently abolished six months later, when Georgia ratified the 13th Amendment. And the next year, the now-free people of Galveston started celebrating Juneteenth, an observance that has continued and spread around the world. Events include concerts, parades and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation.

What does Juneteenth mean? 

It’s a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day, second Independence Day and Emancipation Day.

It began with church picnics and speeches, and spread as Black Texans moved elsewhere.

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