President Biden Declares Juneteenth A Federal Holiday

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have officially declared Juneteenth a federal holiday.

On Thursday, the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which cleared the Senate unanimously, was signed into law. This bill makes June 19th a federal holiday to memorialize the emancipation of enslaved Blacks in America. The monumental date marks the day in 1865 when a Union general notified an assembly of Texas slaves that they had been freed two years earlier under President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Biden called the day a reminder of the “terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take.”

He addressed a room of nearly 80 Congress members and activists, including 94-year-old Opal Lee, who was present to see the bill signed into law after years of fighting for it.

Vice President Harris reminded those in attendance that Black slaves built the White House. She stated that the new holiday was an occasion to “reaffirm and rededicate ourselves to action.”

While many Republicans are working to suppress certain aspects of African-American history within the school system, many of them backed the Juneteenth bill in Congress. Those opposed to the law believe that marking Juneteenth as a federal holiday will divide Americans.

Matthew Delmont, a professor at Dartmouth College with a concentration in African-American history and civil rights, remains skeptical about the bill’s true impact on the country’s deep-rooted racial issues.

“It’s important to commemorate emancipation and to encourage everyday Americans to reckon with the history of slavery, but there is always a danger with these sort of things so they can be performative,” Delmont said.

Juneteenth is now the eleventh federally recognized holiday and the first in nearly forty years. To acknowledge the holiday, federal employees will now take the day off beginning this year. This year they will observe Juneteenth on Friday since it falls on Saturday.