S. 475 designates “Juneteenth National Independence Day as a legal public holiday.” Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger led Union troops into Galveston, Texas, and read General Order Number Three, declaring, “in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” He was referring to the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, which applied only to “persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State” that was in “rebellion against the United States.” However, slavery was not legally abolished until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on December 6, 1865.
The House passed S. 475 on June 16, 2021 by a vote of 415 to 14 (Roll Call 170). We have assigned pluses to the nays because the United States already observes 10 other federal holidays. Furthermore, seeing as slavery ended on December 6, not June 19, the inclusion of the words “National Independence Day” to Juneteenth creates the appearance of supplanting July 4 as America’s Independence Day. This perpetuates a false and dangerous notion that the United States has different days of independence depending on one’s race or ancestry, and is consistent with the communist tactic of “dividing the people” along racial lines.
