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Movements Jun 17, 2021
| Screenshot courtesy of POTUS
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President Joe Biden on Thursday signed the “Juneteenth National Independence Day Act,” which designates Juneteenth National Independence Day as a legal public holiday, in the East Room of the White House.
The law goes into immediate effect. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management confirmed that as June 19 falls on a Saturday this year, “most federal employees will observe the holiday [Friday], June 18th.”
Long celebrated by African American communities, June 19 is now established as the national holiday to commemorate the day some of the last enslaved people in the Confederacy learned that that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation—an order freeing slaves in Confederate states—two and a half years earlier.
“Think about that,” said Vice President Kamala Harris pointed out. “For more than two years the enslaved people of Texas were kept in servitude. For more than two years they were intentionally kept from their freedom.”
“Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” Biden said. “Great nations don’t walk away. We come to terms with the mistakes we made. And remembering those moments, we begin to heal and grow stronger.”
Before the signing, Harris reflected on the occasion. “We are gathered here in a house built by enslaved people. We are footsteps away from where President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation,” she said. “And we are here to witness President Joe Biden establish Juneteenth as a national holiday. We have come far, and we have far to go. But today is a day of celebration. It is not only a day of pride. It’s also a day for us to reaffirm and rededicate ourselves to action.”
The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate Tuesday, while the House approved it in 415 to 14 vote — 14 House Republicans voted against the bill.
Biden and Harris were joined at the signing by senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C), and representatives Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), and 94-year-old activist Opal Lee, also known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth.
