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Juneteenth: Celebrating Freedom Delayed

Andy Anderson, chief historian for Wells Fargo Bank, explains to a "Juneteenth" audience how to find connections with their ancestors. Juneteenth, he says, is about re-establishing ties with family -- ties lost due to slavery.
Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR
Andy Anderson, chief historian for Wells Fargo Bank, explains to a "Juneteenth" audience how to find connections with their ancestors. Juneteenth, he says, is about re-establishing ties with family -- ties lost due to slavery.

NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates reports on a Los Angeles celebration of "Juneteenth," a day recognizing the moment when African-American slaves in Texas got word of the Emancipation Proclamation -- but nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed it into law.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Karen Grigsby Bates is the Senior Correspondent for Code Switch, a podcast that reports on race and ethnicity. A veteran NPR reporter, Bates covered race for the network for several years before becoming a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is especially interested in stories about the hidden history of race in America—and in the intersection of race and culture. She oversees much of Code Switch's coverage of books by and about people of color, as well as issues of race in the publishing industry. Bates is the co-author of a best-selling etiquette book (Basic Black: Home Training for Modern Times) and two mystery novels; she is also a contributor to several anthologies of essays. She lives in Los Angeles and reports from NPR West.