Explainer-What is Juneteenth and how are people marking the day?

FILE PHOTO: Trumpeter Crystal Howard marches down the street while playing with her band during a block party to mark Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in Texas, over two years after the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves elsewhere in the U.S., in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., June 17, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Wurm/File Photo

(Reuters) - Juneteenth is the newest federal holiday and commemorates the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans. U.S. President Joe Biden signed the bill creating the holiday in 2021.

Juneteenth, long a regional holiday in the U.S. South, rose in prominence following protests in 2020 over police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks and other African Americans.