View Comments Juneteenth is the annual commemoration of June 19, 1865, the date that enslaved people in Texas learned they were free, two years after President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Since then the occasion has been marked in a variety of ways from somber remembrances to joyous celebrations. In Arizona, the holiday has been celebrated since the early 1900s. There have been large events such as the annual celebration at Phoenix's Eastlake Park that drew an estimated 20,000 people as well as smaller neighborhood events. Last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic...