Former US Vice President Kamala Harris joins celebrations marking the federal holiday known as Juneteenth.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced the freedom of enslaved African Americans in Texas, formally enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years after it was issued.

The day is widely regarded as marking the effective end of slavery in the Confederacy and the beginning of a long and ongoing struggle for civil rights and full equality in the United States.