The June 19 Holiday was voted in by both Houses of Congress….
A batch of Republicans did NOT vote for this Holiday which celebrates the day Union soldiers got to Texas in 1865 to proclaim slavery abolished for the whole Union…..
This was actually 2 years AFTER President Lincoln did the Emancipation Proclamation….
Juneteenth, the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in America, is finally on the precipice of becoming a federal holiday, as the House on Wednesday passed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act by a vote of 415-14.
All 14 “no” votes came from Republicans. Two members did not vote.
“What I see here today is racial divide crumbling, being crushed this day under a momentous vote that brings together people who understand the value of freedom,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), the sponsor of the bill, said at a press conference with other lawmakers shortly before the vote….
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One Republican, Rep. Matt Rosendale (Mont.), said ahead of the vote that making Juneteenth a federal holiday was “an effort by the left to create a day out of whole cloth to celebrate identity politics as part of its larger efforts to make Critical Race Theory the reigning ideology of our country,” referring to discussions of systemic racism in schools.
The legislation passed through the Senate with unanimous consent on Tuesday; it now heads to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
Juneteenth is a portmanteau of the date that it falls on, June 19. On that day in 1865, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union Army issued General Order No. 3 from Galveston, Texas, informing the remaining enslaved people there that they were free.
The House vote operated under a closed rule that was ironed out by the House Rules Committee early Wednesday afternoon in an effort to stop any last-minute bad-faith efforts to stop the legislation from passing.
Juneteenth is getting its day in the sun, as racial justice and equity have dominated national discussion a year after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national reckoning with systemic racism and police brutality.
The conversation on how to address prevailing racism and disparities in the country is littered with numerous partisan battle lines, but establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday has received relatively broad bipartisan support….
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And even though the war officially ended on April 9, 1865, it would take Union troops another two months to make their way through Texas, which at the time was the most remote and westward state.
Granger and his troops arrived in the Port of Galveston on June 18, 1865, and a day later, he read the order emancipating all people in the state who were still enslaved.
The 13th Amendment, officially prohibiting slavery in the U.S., wouldn’t be ratified until December of that year….
Biden admin announces this Friday off for Fed employee’s in connect with June holiday