National parks will be free to enter on Thursday: Here's why

DENVER (KDVR) — Entrance fees to all 63 of the nation's national parks will be waived on Thursday as the National Park Service commemorates Juneteenth.

The day is known by many names — Black Independence Day, Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day — but the reason to celebrate it remains the same throughout: Commemoration of the day that the last African Americans learned they were no longer enslaved people.

President Abraham Lincoln had already signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which became official as of Jan.