COVINGTON- Today marks the Juneteenth celebration for many members of the Newton County Community.

Saturday the community will gather at the Nelson Heights Community Center from noon-8 p.m. to reflect on the end of slavery.

Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers led by Major Gen. Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war ended and the enslaved were free.

Granger’s arrival in Galveston came two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.