(4/4) Despite Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, his proposal culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law just a few hours after it was passed by Congress on July 2, 1964.

(3/4) Kennedy then proposed that Congress consider civil rights legislation that would address voting rights, public accommodations, school desegregation, nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs, and more.

(2/4)One year prior, in a nationally televised address on June 6, 1963, former President John F. Kennedy had urged the nation to take action toward guaranteeing equal treatment of every American regardless of race.

It would be another six months before the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery throughout the entire country, would be ratified on December 6, 1865.

Source: Wallace Booker, D., Esq. (2020, June 19). Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom. Retrieved June 12, 2023, from buff.ly/sW9aURo

That promise and enforcement became real when General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with nearly 2,000 Union troops on June 18, 1865. On the following day, June 19, from the balcony of the Ashton Villa, Granger read “General Order #3” that “officially” ended slavery in the area.