A look at the history that made Juneteenth a federal holiday after 156 years

• President Biden establishes Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
• Representative Sheila Jackson Lee pushed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
• It's the 12th legal public holiday in the U.S., the first since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1983.

Juneteenth National Independence Day is the United State's newest federal holiday. But it took over 150 years to get to this point. We explain how we got here.

While the origins of Juneteenth date back to June 19th, 1865, technically, the end of slavery came more than two years earlier in 1863. It was after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

But places still under Confederate control didn't acknowledge the decree. Slaveholders migrated to the deep south as a way to keep their property and by 1865, there were more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas.

On June 19th, union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to take command of 2,000 federal troops. As they marched, Union soldiers read "General Order Number 3" aloud, which declared all slaves free.

The moment marked the original Juneteenth, which would be celebrated for years to com. Celebrations began shortly after 1865 in Galveston, but picked up steam Austin, Texas in the 1900s. The city held some of the first documented celebrations.

Photos from 1905 show African Americans parading down streets in Richmond, Virginia, a state with a long history of slave trade.

People decorated floats for Juneteenth festivities in 1906 in Houston.

But around the same time, former Confederate states began passing Jim Crow laws. Which made it difficult for Black people to congregate. Byt the 1930s, the Texas State Fair reinvigorated celebrations in the south. It served as a well-known, but still segregated, meeting spot for festivities.

Decades later, Texas became the first to officially recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday in 1980. Then came Florida in 1991 and Oklahoma in 1994. By 1997, Juneteenth had its own flag.

The white star represents Texas, the "Lone Star State," where slaves were the last to find out they were free. And its patriotic colors are a reminder that slaves and their descendants are all Americans.

By the 21st century, communities across America were celebrating Juneteenth.

"Historically when we think about holidays, like the 4th of July, [it] clearly that wasn't for black people," said Andrea Benjamin, an African American Studies professor at the University of Oklahoma. "I think Juneteenth has sort of come in and is a substitute day for black people to really celebrate our experience in the country."

The black lives matter movement brought national attention to holiday in the summer of 2020. For the first time, companies like Nike, Twitter, and Uber gave employees a paid day off to commemorate Juneteenth.

President Biden made Juneteenth the nation's 12th federal holiday this year. It comes after House member Sheila Jackson Lee first introduced the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in 2020. After 156 years, Juneteenth celebrations nationwide are here to stay.