A bill to make Juneteenth Independence Day a federal holiday passed the House on Wednesday and will head to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
The bill would make June 19 the 11th federal legal public holiday.
Also known as Emancipation Day or Jubilee Day, Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States marked by Major General Gordon Granger arriving in Galveston Bay, Texas, with 2,000 Union troops to issue an order on June 19, 1865, that said “all slaves are free” under the Emancipation Proclamation.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862, to go into effect on Jan. 1, 1863. However, hundreds of thousands of black people in areas under Confederate control remained enslaved throughout the Civil War.
SENATORS CELEBRATE BILL MAKING JUNETEENTH A NATIONAL HOLIDAY
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey in the Senate and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the House, both Democrats, first introduced legislation to make Juneteenth a holiday last year on June 19, as Black Lives Matter demonstrations prompted by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis swept the country.
Jackson Lee brought a large photo of a black slave with a back scarred from a whip to the House floor on Wednesday while speaking in support of the bill. The holiday would “commemorate the end of chattel slavery, America’s original sin, and would bring about celebration, crushing racial divide down to a point of unity,” she said.
Some Republicans initially blocked the bill, balking at giving federal employees another day off. Last year, Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and James Lankford of Oklahoma proposed getting rid of Columbus Day to designate Juneteenth as a holiday.
Although other Republicans said they support the idea of creating a holiday to commemorate the end of slavery, they took issue with the bill going through a rushed process or the name of the holiday.
“Naming this day ‘National Independence Day’ will create confusion and push Americans to pick one of those two days as their Independence Day based on their racial identity,” said Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie.
Despite a partisan split on the bill, an overwhelming majority of Republicans voted for final passage.
Currently, 10 days per year are designated as legal public holidays in the U.S. code: New Year’s Day, the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Washington’s Birthday (commonly called President’s Day), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
But Johnson dropped his hold on the legislation on Tuesday, saying in a statement, “While it still seems strange that having taxpayers provide federal employees paid time off is now required to celebrate the end of slavery, it is clear that there is no appetite in Congress to further discuss the matter.”
The Senate bill, which had 60 bipartisan co-sponsors, passed with unanimous consent on Tuesday.
But it was not universally embraced by Republicans in the House.
“This is 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,” said Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale.
Biden is expected to sign the legislation.
Congress’s action follows several state-level and corporate designations of June 19 as a company holiday, with a wave of recognition coming in 2020. Nike, Mastercard, Target, Twitter, and Uber were among those that made Juneteenth a paid holiday, and it is already a paid state holiday in Texas, New York, Virginia, and Washington.
Creation of a new federal holiday is likely to encourage private, state, and local recognition of Juneteenth.
“Designating June 19 as a national holiday would increase awareness of education on Juneteenth, it would celebrate black history and culture, it would recognize the Americans who fought and died to end slavery,” Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania said on the House floor Wednesday.
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The White House did not respond to a request for comment on if and when Biden will sign the legislation. He returns from Europe on Wednesday.
Naomi Lim contributed to this report.
