On the anniversary of the end of slavery… Congress declares June 19 a national holiday

On Wednesday, the US Congress approved the designation of June 19 as a federal (national) holiday to commemorate the Emancipation of Texas’ last slaves in 1865.

The law, passed by the House of Representatives with 415 votes to 14 and backed by Republican and Democratic leaders, stipulates that the so-called “Jountinth” – a word that combines the name of the month of June and the date of the 19th – is a holiday.

The Democrats’ vote came the day after the text was passed in the Senate, while the text of the resolution remains before President Joe Biden’s vote before it goes into effect, two days before the occasion.

“This day represents freedom,” said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat who was among the parliamentarians who introduced the bill. She spoke of the “long journey” that led to this vote. “But here today we are free to vote for Juneth as a national independence day, a federal holiday in the United States,” she said.

Calls to make June 19 a federal holiday multiplied after the killing of black American George Floyd, who was killed by a white policeman on May 25, 2020.

President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but during the American Civil War (1861-1865) slavery continued in the southern Confederate states.

Confederate army commander Robert Lee signed his surrender on April 9, 1865. But it took more than two months for the news to reach the small town of Galveston, Texas, on June 19.