ATLANTA: Crowds gathered across United States on Saturday to mark Juneteenth as a new federal holiday commemorating the end of the legal enslavement of Black Americans.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday signed a bill making Juneteenth the 11th federally recognized holiday, just over a year after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis ignited nationwide protests for racial justice and for ending police brutality.
“Juneteenth is a day of profound weight and profound power,” Biden tweeted on Saturday.
Juneteenth, or June 19th, marks the day in 1865 when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Texas that they had been made free two years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.
In Atlanta, outside the church where Martin Luther King, Jr. preached and led protests for voting rights, equal access to public services, and social and economic justice, crowds cheered marching bands and dancers adorned with “Black Lives Matter” signs.
Many onlookers were joyful but some said declaring a national holiday might be a hollow victory for Blacks, many of whom still suffer racial injustice in the United States that can be remedied only through more substantial efforts by the federal government.
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Around the United States, concerts, rallies, art displays and lots of food were among events planned for Juneteenth. Atlanta and its metro area have been celebrating Juneteenth for years. Richard Rose, president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP, said this year’s designation of Juneteenth as a federal holiday resonates in the city often called the “cradle of the civil rights movement.”
“While we celebrate, what we have to remember is that we must fight for our rights – in the ballot box, in the schools. And we have to stand up, city-to-city, across this nation,” Rose said.
Across the country, many events will take place in-person, unlike last year, as the United States emerges from the coronavirus pandemic and more Americans get vaccinated.
Floyd’s killing touched off global protests against racism and police violence toward minorities. That movement helped raise the visibility of Juneteenth — a date that many Americans, including many African Americans, had not heard of even two years ago.
An opinion survey published by the Gallup institute found that 28 percent of Americans knew “nothing at all” about the anniversary.
