June 19, 2023 |
Photo – Historic photo of freed slaves – Courtesy National Museum of African American History
Today is a federal holiday. Banks and federal offices are closed. It’s Juneteenth, commemorating the date when Union soldiers reached Galveston, Texas, in 1865 to liberate the last remaining enslaved people not yet freed as ordered by the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier.
It’s the newest federal holiday.
This year, at least 28 states and the District of Columbia will legally recognize Juneteenth as a holiday.
Some states, such as California and North Carolina, allow its government workers to take today off or then can choose to work and opt to take a floating holiday.
Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and nineteenth. It commemorates the day more than two months after the end of the Civil War – and more than two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation – when enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom.
It is one of 11 official federal holidays – or 12 for federal workers in the District of Columbia and surrounding areas during presidential inauguration years – meaning that federal workers get a paid day off and there’s no mail delivery.
President Joe Biden signed the legislation that made Juneteenth a federal holiday in June 2021.
Before Juneteenth received federal and state recognition, the day often was celebrated in black communities with family gatherings emphasizing ethnic food traditions. The color red is often part of the theme.
