Photos: Juneteenth becomes America's 'second Independence Day', thanks to Biden

Juneteenth, the day marking the emancipation of slaves in the US, has been made a federal holiday - after 155 years.

President Joe Biden put pen to paper at the White House on Thursday to sign the bill into law, with the first Juneteenth National Independence Day being observed tomorrow. It has been celebrated annually and has gone through many iterations - including Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Liberation Day, Emancipation Day. It is not clear how it came to be called Juneteenth National Independence Day, but Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said that America only 'truly became the land of the free and the home of the brave' when Union Army General George Granger freed the last saves in Texas in 1865. 

When she introduced the bill in 2020, she said: 

'[Juneteenth] commemorates freedom while acknowledging the sacrifices and contributions made by courageous African Americans towards making our great nation the more conscious and accepting country that it has become. 

'It was only after that day in 1865, on the heels of the most devastating conflict in our country's history, in the aftermath of a civil war that pitted brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor and threatened to tear the fabric of our union apart forever, that America truly became the land of the free and the home of the brave.'

WHAT IS JUNETEENTH? THE DAY THE LAST SLAVES WERE FREED IN TEXAS 

Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and 19th, also is known as Emancipation Day.