June 19, 2011 (CHICAGO) --
Sunday is Juneteenth day in Illinois and around the country.Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration marking the end of slavery in the United States.
On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers first told slaves in Galveston, Texas that they'd been freed two and a half years prior by the Emancipation Proclamation.
The celebration afterward was coined "Juneteenth."