Pew: Nearly half of states now recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday

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Society & Culture
Juneteenth
Holidays
American Culture
Pew Research

“Juneteenth National Independence Day, which celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, became a federal holiday last year.” - Pew

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David R. Brumbelow
Mon, 06/20/22 12:18 pm

Juneteenth refers to June 19, AD 1865. That is the day federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced to the slaves that they were now free. So Juneteenth, while a federal holiday, began as a uniquely Texas celebration. It has been officially recognized in Texas since 1980, but celebrated there long before. It began as an official federal holiday in 2021.

The partial cost of ending slavery in the United States was the loss of 620,000 men in the Civil War, about 2% of the population of the 1860s.

Read more about Juneteenth:

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/juneteenth

David R. Brumbelow