It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed, after the Civil War’s end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

The resulting Juneteenth holiday—its name combining “June” and “nineteenth”—has only grown in one and a half centuries. In 2021, President Joe Biden designated it a federal holiday, expanding its recognition beyond Black America.

I don’t have a strong connection to Juneteenth, but that’s because I’m not black. I’m happy it is a Federal holiday, even though it’s one that means little in my world. I don’t get it off, but my wife does.

In retrospect, it’s a little sad how little I knew of this holiday before it became a federal one. The same thing goes for the Tulsa race massacre at the center of the Watchmen TV show from several years ago.

I was never taught these stories in my American history classes.