BOB PEDEN
Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston on June 18, 1865, along with 1800 troops and announced that the Civil War was over.
On June 19th, Granger read a proclamation which stated, in part:
“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Yet two and a half years later, there were over a quarter of a million slaves in Texas who were unaware of their new freedom.
Celebrations broke out throughout Galveston and across the state. Today, we are surrounded by people who are slaves to sin, caught up in patterns of behavior that control their lives: lust, ambition, greed. Our task, therefore, is to embrace the freedom that Christ offers and announce that freedom to others. We need to help people see that slavery to our own desires is still slavery, and that God offers the only way out of that bondage.
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