On this day — June 19 in African history

Real events, births and milestones from Africa and the diaspora.

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Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that enslaved African Americans were free,… 2C2KPhotography — CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 1865

Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that enslaved African Americans were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation — an event commemorated annually as Juneteenth.

Culture
1913

South Africa's Natives Land Act took effect, barring Black South Africans from owning land across most of the country and laying the legal groundwork for later apartheid-era segregation.

Politics
Sol Plaatje, a founding member of the African National Congress and one of South Africa's first B… Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons 1932

Sol Plaatje, a founding member of the African National Congress and one of South Africa's first Black journalists and novelists, died.

Death