Juneteenth is now officially a national holiday.

Earlier this evening, President Joe Biden “signed a bill into law to make June 19, known as Juneteenth, a national holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States ….

The House on Wednesday voted 415-14 to pass the bipartisan legislation, called the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. All no votes came from Republicans. The bill had won unanimous support in the Senate on Tuesday.

The law created the US’s 11th federally recognized holiday. The latest one, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was established nearly 40 years ago ….

Juneteenth, often referred to as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, or Emancipation Day, celebrates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers traveled to Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced that the region’s 250,0000 enslaved African Americans were emancipated, thus effectively abolishing slavery in the last Confederate territory.

The holiday has been celebrated since the late 1800s and had been recognized in 47 states and the District of Columbia for several years ….

Complete article by Eliza Relman and Oma Seddiq titled “Biden makes Juneteenth a national holiday, giving federal employees Friday off” can be read online at Business Insider.