Juneteenth marks 1865 arrival of emancipation in Texas

University of Utah professor Paul Reeve shares the history of Juneteenth, which marks the announcement of emancipation for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865. The U's Simmons Chair of Mormon Studies, Reeve explains that the Emancipation Proclamation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, only freed slaves in Confederate states where Union troops were present. Reeve highlighted the arrival of three enslaved men in Utah in 1847 and the 1852 Utah territorial law that granted some rights to enslaved people but did not free them. He noted that there was a protracted debate within governing bodies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the morality of slavery and said it isn't clear when slaves in the territory learned of emancipation. Reeve said historians suspect enslaved people in Utah may have been liberated after the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.