Juneteenth: Moving from symbolism to substance

When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation Jan. 1, 1863, it changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved Black people in the Confederate states from enslaved to free. It was two-and-a-half years later, on June 19, 1865, that Gen. Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for the 250,000 enslaved residents of Texas…