Momentum is building for it to gain recognition on the state and federal levels.
Formal recognition of Juneteenth, a day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, is gaining traction in corporate America, with a growing number of businesses and states acknowledging the holiday.
But the day faces a difficult road to becoming a federal holiday and a possibly even longer road to becoming a holiday for the financial markets, if history is any guide.
Twitter, Target, Nike and the NFL are among the entities closing offices, giving employees a paid day off or providing holiday pay. JPMorgan Chase and PNC will close bank branches early. This week, the governors of Virginia and New York have announced their plans to put forth legislation to make it an official state holiday.
A bipartisan group of legislators are working on bills to make it a federal holiday, including Republican Sen. John Cornyn and Democratic Rep. Sheila-Jackson Lee, both of Texas. Additionally, California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris says she will put forth similar legislation, along with Sens. Cory Booker, D-N. J., Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Ed Markey, D-Mass.
Widespread recognition of Juneteenth comes in the wake of nationwide protests against systemic racism following the deaths of several Black Americans at the hands of police, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks.
The holiday itself, a portmanteau of «June» and «nineteenth,» marks June 19, 1865, the day Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform slaves there that the Civil War had ended and slavery had been abolished. The announcement came two years after the enactment of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and a couple months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender.
