This weekend is Juneteenth. The holiday, celebrated on June 19, commemorates the day in 1865 when slavery effectively ended in the United States — a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

And this is the second Juneteenth since the government declared the day a federal holiday.

Here & Now’s Jane Clayson speaks with Hasan Kwame Jeffries, associate professor of history at Ohio State University, about the significance of Juneteenth.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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