Juneteenth celebrations across the US commemorate the end of slavery

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Juneteenth celebrations unfolded across the U.S. on Thursday, marking the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas and attracting participants who said current events strengthened their resolve to be heard.

The holiday has been celebrated by Black Americans for generations, but became more widely observed after being designated a federal holiday in 2021 by former President Joe Biden, who attended a Juneteenth event at a church in Galveston, Texas, the holiday's birthplace.

Biden said he was proud to sign the law making Juneteenth a federal holiday because “all Americans should know the weight and power of this day.”

“Some say to me and you that this doesn't deserve to be a federal holiday. They don't want to remember what we all remember, the moral stain of slavery,” he said.

The celebrations come as President Donald Trump’s administration has worked to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government and remove content about Black American history from federal websites. Trump’s travel ban on visitors from select countries has also led to bitter national debate.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Robert Reid waved a large Juneteenth flag at the city's African Burying Ground Memorial Park, where African drummers and dancers led the crowd in song and dance. Reid, 60, said he attended in part to stand against what he called Trump's “divide and conquer” approach.

“It's time for people to get pulled together instead of separated,” he said.

Jordyn Sorapuru, 18, visiting New Hampshire from California, called the large turnout a “beautiful thing.”

“It's nice to be celebrated every once in a while, especially in the political climate right now," she said. “With the offensive things going on right now, with brown people in the country and a lot of people being put at risk for just existing, having celebrations like this is really important.”

The holiday to mark the end of slavery in the U.S. goes back to an order issued on June 19, 1865, as Union troops arrived in Galveston at the end of the Civil War. General Order No. 3 declared that all enslaved people in the state were free and had “absolute equality.”

Juneteenth is recognized at least as an observance in every state, and nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C., have designated it as a permanent paid or legal holiday through legislation or executive action.

In Virginia, a ceremonial groundbreaking was held for rebuilding the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, one of the nation’s oldest Black churches.

In Fort Worth, Texas, about 2,500 people participated in Opal Lee’s annual Juneteenth walk. The 98-year-old Lee, known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth” for the years she spent advocating to make the day a federal holiday, was recently hospitalized and didn’t participate in public this year. But her granddaughter, Dione Sims, said Lee was “in good spirits.”

“The one thing that she would tell the community and the nation at large is to hold on to your freedoms,” Sims said. “Hold on to your freedom and don’t let it go, because it’s under attack right now.”

Events were planned throughout the day in Galveston, including a parade, a celebration at a park with music and the service at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church that Biden attended.

During a Juneteenth speech in Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore announced pardons for 6,938 cases of simple marijuana possession, which can hinder employment and educational opportunities and have disproportionally affected the Black community.

Moore, a Democrat who is Maryland’s first Black governor and the only Black governor currently serving, last year ordered tens of thousands of pardons for marijuana possession. The newly announced pardons weren’t included in that initial announcement because they’d been incorrectly coded.

In New Hampshire, Thursday's gathering capped nearly two weeks of events organized by the Black History Trail of New Hampshire aimed at both celebrating Juneteenth and highlighting contradictions in the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding fathers ahead of next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“In a time when efforts to suppress Black history are on the rise, and by extension, to suppress American history, we stand firm in the truth," said JerriAnne Boggis, the Heritage Trail’s executive director. "This is not just Black history, it is all of our history.”

During his first administration, Trump issued statements each June 19, including one that ended with “On Juneteenth 2017, we honor the countless contributions made by African Americans to our Nation and pledge to support America’s promise as the land of the free.”

When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked during her Thursday media briefing whether the president would commemorate the holiday this year, she replied, “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today.”

Later Thursday Trump complained on his social media site about “too many non-working holidays” and said it is “costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed.” Most retailers are open on Juneteenth, while federal workers generally get a day off because the government is closed.

New Hampshire, one of the nation's whitest states, is not among those with a permanent, paid or legal Juneteenth holiday, and Boggis said her hope that lawmakers would take action making it one is waning.

“I am not so sure anymore given the political environment we’re in," she said. “I think we’ve taken a whole bunch of steps backwards in understanding our history, civil rights and inclusion.”

Still, she hopes New Hampshire's events and those elsewhere will make a difference.

“It’s not a divisive tool to know the truth. Knowing the truth helps us understand some of the current issues that we’re going through,” she said.

And if spreading that truth comes with a bit of fun, all the better, she said.

“When we come together, when we break bread together, we enjoy music together, we learn together, we dance together, we’re creating these bonds of community,” she said. “As much was we educate, we also want to celebrate together.”

Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed to this report.

Jaala Martin dances as Former President Joe Biden watches during a Juneteenth event at the Reedy Chapel AME Church, Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

People participate during a Juneteenth parade Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Former President Joe Biden holds up a T-shirt designed with the date 1865 during a Juneteenth event at the Reedy Chapel AME Church, Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Levis Martin, left, and his brother Daniel dance during a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Kelsea and Kennedy Branford watch during a Juneteenth parade Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Kids participate in a Juneteenth parade Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Former President Joe Biden gets ready to speak during a Juneteenth event at the Reedy Chapel AME Church, Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

A band plays during a Juneteenth parade Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Galveston, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

T.J. Wheeler sings along with the Leftist Marching Band during a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

A young boy attends a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Members of the Akwaaba Ensemble Nii Osenda, left, and Samuel Marquaye dance during a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Tanisha Johnson attends a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

People attend a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Nii Osenda of the Akwaaba Ensemble leads people in dance during a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Paul Wendell wears a Juneteenth themed t-shirt during a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Robert Reid holds a flag during a Juneteenth celebration at the African Burying Ground Memorial Park Thursday, June 19, 2025, in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

(AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)