WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a presidential message on Juneteenth in which he noted “the unimaginable injustice of slavery and the incomparable joy that must have attended emancipation.”
“It is both a remembrance of a blight on our history and a celebration of our Nation’s unsurpassed ability to triumph over darkness.”
Trump's message: “On this day 155 years ago, African Americans in Texas first heard the righteous and long-overdue words of General Order Number 3: “All slaves are free.” These words confirmed for still-enslaved people in Texas that the Union Army would enforce and defend their freedom, announced nearly 3 years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln in his Emancipation Proclamation.
![President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, Jan. 1, 1863, in Washington](https://emfservices.azureedge.net/news/14794.jpg)
Juneteenth reminds us of both the unimaginable injustice of slavery and the incomparable joy that must have attended emancipation. It is both a remembrance of a blight on our history and a celebration of our Nation’s unsurpassed ability to triumph over darkness. That ability is rooted in the fundamental goodness of America -- in the truths upon which we, as a Nation, declared an end to our status as the subjects of a monarch and emerged as a free and independent people: that all men are created equal by the hand of God, endowed by our Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These words form the heart of what Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” The celebration of Juneteenth marks an important milestone in the hard-fought journey to make good on that promise for all Americans.
This Juneteenth, we commit, as one Nation, to live true to our highest ideals and to build always toward a freer, stronger country that values the dignity and boundless potential of all Americans.”
![Najula Jackson, of Atlanta, left, and Lance Brown, of New Orleans, listen as a tour guide explains the Wall of Honor, for all of the known enslaved people who lived at the plantation, at the Whitney Plantation in Edgard, La.](https://emfservices.azureedge.net/news/14795.jpg)
![A slavery port marker sits along the shore in Portsmouth, N.H., identifying a port where slaves arrived or where ships were sent to be used in the trade. A project aimed at bringing the little-known history of some of America’s most prolific slave-trade ports to the public is moving to its next target: Rhode Island, where some 1,000 slave-trading voyages were launched.](https://emfservices.azureedge.net/news/14796.jpg)