The Lawmaker The Preacher The Farmer The Wife and Daughter

     Juneteenth is a day all Americans celebrate African American freedom, history and culture.  Also known as Emancipation,  Juneteenth commemorates June 19th 1865 when Union General Gordan Granger and 2000 Federal troops arrived on Galveston Island to take possession of the State of Texas and enforce emancipation.

     In 1970 the Texas Legislature made Juneteenth an official state holiday.  In 1999 the State Legislature appropriated several million dollars for a  Juneteenth monument to be built and installed on the grounds of the State Capital.  But when the group of statues were completed it seemed one of the statures resembled the lawmaker who proposed the 1979 and 1999 bills so the then Legislature scraped plans to install the monument on the Capital ground.  The statues were stored at the State's surplus property warehouse East Austin and later moved to a field in Bastrop where they lay until this year.  In 2013 the Black Caucus along with the George Carver Museum made plans to install the group of statues on the grounds of the Carver Museum in East Austin.  The monument will be dedicated next Saturday