US President Joe Biden will later on Thursday sign legislation, creating a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the country. Both the House and Senate passed the legislation that has now been sent to the President’s desk for signature.
Juneteenth – marked annually on June 19th – celebrates broadly the emancipation of African-Americans who had been enslaved in the United States, but specifically when Union soldiers from the north brought news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, on the same date in 1865 – two months after the breakaway southern Confederacy had surrendered to the north.
This happened about two and a half years after an Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September, 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln. Juneteenth will become the first national holiday since Martin Luther King Jr Day was created in 1983.
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are expected to make remarks at the signing ceremony later on Thursday.
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