For the first time, San Bernardino County has declared Juneteenth an official county holiday.
At their Tuesday, May 24 meeting, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted to mark June 19 each year as Juneteenth.
Juneteenth is a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” and celebrates the freeing of the last slaves in Confederate states after the Civil War.
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became law, officially freeing slaves across the United States. But Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee wouldn’t surrender until April 9, 1865. And word of the end of the war didn’t reach Texas until June 18, 1865, when 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston to occupy the former Confederate state. The next day, Gen. Gordon Granger announced that the approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas were freed, bringing slavery in America to an end.
Last year, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday every June 19.
Starting this year, it’s a county holiday as well. As June 19 falls on a Sunday this year, county offices will be closed on June 20. A number of Inland Empire communities commemorated Juneteenth last year, many of them for the first time.
In a written statement, Board of Supervisor Chairman Curt Hagman noted that it was on June 23, 2020, that the board declared racism a public health crisis.
“The board is committed to making equity a focus of everything we do,” Hagman is quoted as saying in the written statement. “I encourage everyone to observe Juneteenth as a day to celebrate that race, ethnicity, heritage, or belief must never stand in the way of freedom.”
Source link
English
Filipino
Spanish