On Wednesday, Congress overwhelmingly voted to establish Juneteenth National Independence Day as a legal public holiday. Juneteenth is the first federal holiday to be established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.
On June 19, 1865, Black Texans in Galveston, still living in slave conditions, finally learned that Abraham Lincoln had abolished slavery two years previously.
Let’s make Juneteenth a commemorative, not of the horrific institution our country embraced, but rather as a showcase of the strength in the American spirit to recognize wrong and set about making it right. In this same spirit America moves ahead today in leveling playing fields and achieivng ever greater equality. Let us celebrate all that Juneteenth teaches us about our country’s greatness in our use of the heart to hear and to learn and to work together for all that is good and just.