Juneteenth Becomes a Federal Holiday

June 17, 2021 1:28 PM

What is Juneteenth? This afternoon President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States.

On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which said:

That on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

The proclamation immediately freed about 25,000 to 75,000 enslaved people in the parts of the Confederacy that had been take by the Union. It did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slave-holding border states because slavery was still legal under the Constitution. The war was transformed into a war of liberation as people in Confederate states were emancipated as the Union took more Confederate territory. During the war over 200,000 Black men, mostly formerly enslaved, joined the Union army.

On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, the first of a series of surrenders of Confederate armies that continued until Stand Watie surrendered his battalion of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians on June 23, 1865.

On June 19, 1865, the Union had taken control of most of Texas, and Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

posted by kirkaracha (68 comments total)

The 13th Amendment ended slavery in the United States when it was ratified on December 6, 1865.
Mississippi ratified the amendment on March 16, 1995.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:30 PM on June 17, 2021 [15 favorites]

The 13th Amendment ended slavery in the United States

The 13th Amendment explicitly allows people convicted of crimes to be enslaved, as they are even today.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:35 PM on June 17, 2021 [36 favorites]

The Mississippi River was also part of the border at the time of the proclamation, although people had already begun to free themselves, summer 1862, at Camp Parapet, causing a hell of a lot of economic disruption, Although it was disruption that Treasury Secretary Chase recognized as essential to holding the Mississippi River.

People fleeing plantations to become contraband, then garrison, then finally, soldiers, is probably why the Juneteenth declaration asks people to "remain at [your] present homes."

Also, the 13th, ended slavery, outside of penal institutions, anyway. Hooray!
posted by eustatic at 1:46 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Emancipate the NCAA!
posted by interogative mood at 1:47 PM on June 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

I’m honestly shocked this bill ever made it to Biden’s desk.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:50 PM on June 17, 2021 [22 favorites]

That's great but can we maybe stop having the justice system imprison and police kill black males at far higher rates than any other group in the country?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:50 PM on June 17, 2021 [35 favorites]

If people are hungry for more history of Texas' liberation, including community centered oral history, check out the Texas Freedom Colonies project. It rules.
posted by eustatic at 1:51 PM on June 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

Heard rumors of that all day, but so far no word from payroll. Now that it's on metafilter, I'll print it out. That makes it official.
posted by ctmf at 2:02 PM on June 17, 2021 [5 favorites]

Juneteenth has of course always been a thing here in Texas. In the bar and restaurant sector it was understood that non-celebrants should gladly cover and fill-in one day annually. Happy to see this long and unique tradition formalized...
posted by jim in austin at 2:04 PM on June 17, 2021 [11 favorites]

Yeah, so how does this work exactly? Arizona refuses to do the MLK holiday, claiming there are "too many other federal holidays"; will this one be ignored too?
posted by Melismata at 2:05 PM on June 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

I’m honestly shocked this bill ever made it to Biden’s desk.

I was, too! I didn't even know there was an actual effort to pass the bill, so the first I heard was it had passed the Senate, which was also a shock.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:08 PM on June 17, 2021 [7 favorites]

Meant to add: and my company doesn't do MLK either, but gives us a floating holiday to be taken when we want, again with the claim that having two holidays in one month is problematic. But just this year, they got rid of Columbus Day and turned it into a second floating holiday, saying they were aware of the sensitivity of the issue. Now we just need a holiday for August ...
posted by Melismata at 2:08 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm glad this is being recognized; but my cynical self sees the rapid passage through Congress as purely performative. The GOP can claim they're not racist while they refuse to pass voter-protection laws, because see, they approved the Juneteenth holiday! Performing non-racism while refusing to do anything actually anti-racist.
posted by suelac at 2:21 PM on June 17, 2021 [24 favorites]

This is such a pleasant surprise. I never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to Houston in the 1980s, though I was born in Texas. It seemed like such a local holiday. Except for the people affected, of course. I guess everyone can identify with the story.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:32 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

So who *actually* gets a day off from work tomorrow?
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:57 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Most federal employees, apparently. I can only imagine the frantic rescheduling of meetings etc. Oh well, there are too many meetings, anyway.
posted by zenzenobia at 3:02 PM on June 17, 2021 [7 favorites]

I'm probably being overly optimistic here, because that's one of my things, but I feel like the unanimous Senate vote might be significant.

35 Republican senators didn't vote for the January 6 commission. 21 Republican senators didn't vote to give Congressional Gold Medals to the police who defended the Capitol.

Zero Republican senators opposed a Juneteenth holiday. Maybe being (slightly) anti-racist is a way to distance yourself from Trumpism without distancing yourself from Trump. Maybe Democrats can make the case to the general public that voting rights are a racial-justice issue. Or, like I said, maybe I'm being overly optimistic.
posted by box at 3:03 PM on June 17, 2021 [6 favorites]

Is it weird that the text of the bill doesn’t specify when the holiday is supposed to be observed? June 19th, obviously, but presumably observed on a weekday when the 19th falls on a weekend, right?
posted by mr_roboto at 3:16 PM on June 17, 2021 [5 favorites]

I don’t see where a date is added in the text of the law — am I missing something?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 3:19 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Spending the afternoon frantically meeting with my Director so that we could assess what minimum staffing was needed for the impromptu holiday made for an excellent end to my work week. The FRBs are not closing, so I volunteered to work tomorrow so that my team didn't have to.
posted by gwydapllew at 3:21 PM on June 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

A public defender weighs in:

Courts are closed tomorrow for Juneteenth. My incarcerated clients, all of whom are black men, will remain in jail to celebrate the emancipation of slaves. This is America.

She has a point.
posted by Gadarene at 3:23 PM on June 17, 2021 [49 favorites]

The feds kind of took a little of the glory away from Maine, which just made Juneteenth a state holiday as of next year.
posted by JanetLand at 3:24 PM on June 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

"..surprised the bill made it to the desk, etc"
Despite seemingly hyper neutrality at points, Biden and his team appear to be trying. They also appear to be in a pretty, "strike lightly" to get the most effort/outcome situation. Perhaps situations will settle and we'll see bigger or bolder moves. Regardless, seems as though patience is key.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:27 PM on June 17, 2021

It's wonderful to see Juneteenth become a national holiday. Growing up as a kid in Houston in the 80s I was aware of it but didn't understand. I just knew there was always a big festival / party and the mood was so joyful. A real celebration of freedom.

But the dark side of Juneteenth is what I can't stop dwelling on, as a descendant of slave owners in Texas. I tweeted about this today. June 19 isn't the day "news of emancipation reached Texas", as is often reported. Emancipation had occurred 2.5 years before! And of course Texans knew that the Confederacy had already lost the Civil War over two months ago. The remaining Confederate troops in Texas were staging daily rebellions trying to get the hell away before facing justice.

No, June 19 was the day the American army arrived in Texas. To enforce emancipation. Texans had been holding out trying to keep enslaving people; indeed a bunch of slavers fled to Texas with their victims just ahead of the American army. Texas welcomed them, helped them continue to subjugate other human beings. It took Granger and his army to force the Texans to obey the law of emancipation. It took another five years for Texas to actually rejoin America.

I love that Juneteenth is a joyful holiday, it's a demonstration of the remarkable resilience of African-American people to rise up over this history and claim the day for themselves, for freedom. But I feel a personal responsibility for the history of my own people, the ones who owned slaves in Texas.
posted by Nelson at 3:44 PM on June 17, 2021 [45 favorites]

I'll note that now as a Californian, my congresstoad Doug LaMalfa in CA-1 was one of just 14 congresspeople to vote against honoring Juneteenth as a national holiday. So did his fellow seditionist to the south of us in CA-4, Tom McClintock.

I'm not surprised these two men oppose the Juneteenth holiday. I am concerned they felt it important to racist-signal it so loudly though. I mean I know there are white supremacists all over California. But I like to think that there aren't enough of them that pandering to them is good politics. I guess I'm wrong.
posted by Nelson at 3:48 PM on June 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

I know the final vote in the house was 415-14, but before that (same day) there was a vote that was strictly on party lines (Dems yay, Repubs nay) for "Providing for consideration of the bill (S. 475) to amend title 5, United States Code, to designate Juneteenth National Independence Day as a legal public holiday".

For those of those who don't look at the congressional record regularly, what was that first vote for (in simple speak)?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 3:57 PM on June 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yeah, so how does this work exactly? Arizona refuses to do the MLK holiday, claiming there are "too many other federal holidays"; will this one be ignored too?

In November 1992, voters passed an Martin Luther King Civil Rights Day holiday.
posted by eckeric at 4:02 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Of course Trump promised Juneteenth as a public holiday back in September as an election promise to woo black voters .... How quickly the Republicans forget their own election platform
posted by mbo at 4:02 PM on June 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

Now we just need a holiday for August ...

Well, Lammas Day is the only Cross Quarter Day still uncelebrated in the USA...
posted by y2karl at 4:08 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

In November 1992, voters passed an Martin Luther King Civil Rights Day holiday.

I still play By the time I get to Arizona every time I come into land at Phoenix airport.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:08 PM on June 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

For those of those who don't look at the congressional record regularly, what was that first vote for (in simple speak)?

--OVERSIMPLIFYING--

The House has a default process for what to vote on when. When a bill comes out of committee, it goes onto one of a few "calendars" depending on what it's about and some other stuff, and then they vote on them in order. So, basically, the default process is to vote on stuff in the order that they came out of committee.

One problem with this is that the calendar says we can't vote on the emergency covid relief bill until we're done voting on the umpty-gerjillion bills ahead of it in line. Another problem is that after a little while, the calendars are full enough that all the newer bills that come out will never get a vote no matter how important they are.

So the House, like basically every legislature, has processes for pulling a bill they think is important off of the calendar and voting on it now-ish. In the House, the primary process is a "special rule;" a rule that applies to only one bill. These special rules have to be approved by a majority of those present before they can take effect. While there are occasional exceptions, if the rule is defeated that usually kills the bill.

tl;dr: the Republicans were voting to kill the bill without having to be on record as actually-literally voting against it.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:22 PM on June 17, 2021 [17 favorites]

A fan of the holiday, but not a fan of it being a thing at 4PM the day before we had a bunch of important meetings with Feds that now have to wait until Monday when summer vacations all around are ramping up.

That feeling was tempered when our company then said 'oh hey yeah you can use the holiday line in your time-sheet tomorrow. Is this one of the standard Uniform Monday Holidays or is it like Vets and Christmas?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 4:26 PM on June 17, 2021

So who *actually* gets a day off from work tomorrow?

Public university employee in the Midwest here. We got an email from our university president shortly after 5 saying we're closed tomorrow.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:32 PM on June 17, 2021 [6 favorites]

Hey, I have a day off tomorrow!
posted by acrasis at 4:42 PM on June 17, 2021

Is this one of the standard Uniform Monday Holidays or is it like Vets and Christmas?

It's June nineteenth of every year, so it will be on whatever day that falls. Since it is a Saturday this year, it will be celebrated on the Friday before the holiday.
posted by Quonab at 4:44 PM on June 17, 2021

I feel like I should also add that we have a national day of mourning whenever a former president dies. So this sudden holiday the next day thing isn't completely unusual for federal workers. We manage to deal with them semi-regularly.
posted by Quonab at 4:46 PM on June 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

I suspect this got through because ultimately it's not a huge thing (lots of places don't even give workers federal holidays off these days), and Republicans can point to it and say, "see, we're not obstructionist after all."
posted by JHarris at 4:49 PM on June 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

mr_roboto: The 13th Amendment explicitly allows people convicted of crimes to be enslaved, as they are even today.

There are people working on that, too:

Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) introduced the Abolition Amendment, which would strike the “punishment clause” of the 13th Amendment and abolish forced prison labor.

Some states are expressing support for the idea, like New Jersey, while others are going ahead with abolishing it within their borders all by themselves, like Tennessee.
posted by kristi at 4:56 PM on June 17, 2021 [20 favorites]

One of the reasons given for voting against the bill was that it will further divide America. I agree which is why I’m advocating for the elimination of the federal holidays of Christmas and Easter which excludes and divides non-Christians. I’m sure the 14 Republicans would get behind my idea because the division is really what bothers them, right?
posted by misterpatrick at 5:04 PM on June 17, 2021 [14 favorites]

I wonder how it will end up being celebrated by my fellow White people. We can sometimes do MLK Day well, but then there's Cinco de Mayo...
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:09 PM on June 17, 2021

So who *actually* gets a day off from work tomorrow?

Myself and all in my biotech lab do. In fact, HR bent over backwards to make sure we all knew the paperwork was taken care of for us, as far as time-off logging goes. I'm proud to work at such a responsively progressive place.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:10 PM on June 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

For those of those who don't look at the congressional record regularly, what was that first vote for (in simple speak)?

Basically every bill goes to the House floor along with a resolution from the Rules Committee setting out the rules for consideration: how long they have for debate, what amendments and motions are allowed. The majority controls the Rules Committee and so has total control over how the bill goes to the floor. For this one (here’s a link to the text) they had a “closed rule”, with no amendments allowed—which makes sense, because the bill just adds a line to the list of federal holidays.

Rules basically always go through on party-line votes, regardless of the bill itself.

If House leadership is optimistic that a bill is truly not controversial and should pass easily, they can bring it up for quick consideration under “suspension of the rules”, but then it takes 2/3 to pass.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:39 PM on June 17, 2021 [2 favorites]

Congressman LaMalfa explained his vote against celebrating freedom to the local paper. It's some bullshit hairsplitting about the name of the holiday, similar to what misterpatrick refers to above. Other folks report when they called his office they didn't like the idea of all the expense of a national holiday. I'm still worried by his deciding that pandering to racists is a good idea.
posted by Nelson at 6:03 PM on June 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

I wonder how it will end up being celebrated by my fellow White people.

Red drinks

44 Recipes From Black Food Bloggers to Celebrate Juneteenth
68 Recipes From Black Creators to Celebrate Juneteenth
It’s a Virtual Juneteenth Cookout! 65+ Black Food Bloggers Share Their Favorite Recipes

But keep your bland-ass potato salad to yourself, Karen.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:05 PM on June 17, 2021 [10 favorites]

I'd never heard of Juneteenth until last year, when that racist death cult decided to hold a super spreader rally during the height of the pandemic in Tulsa. Also the same time I learnt about the worst hate crime in US history. Sometimes it takes an asshole to teach.

Speaking of teaching, why didn't I learn about this in school? Don't answer that.

I think it's a slick move that this is politically irreversible. Who wants to be the person who revokes everyone's day off?
posted by adept256 at 6:08 PM on June 17, 2021 [3 favorites]

In the spirit of learning, I wondered who the 93yo woman was at the signing. It's Opal Lee.

Ms. Opal Lee began Opal’s Walk 2 DC in 2016 at age 89. She started with the plan to walk the 1,400 miles from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, DC in hopes of gaining support from Congress to officially name Juneteenth a national holiday. With the goal of 100,000 petition signatures, Ms. Opal set out on her mission and hasn’t stopped since. She has since reached over 1.5 million signatures.

I have a new hero. Read the bio, she's pretty amazing.
posted by adept256 at 6:29 PM on June 17, 2021 [21 favorites]

Despite seemingly hyper neutrality at points, Biden and his team appear to be trying. They also appear to be in a pretty, "strike lightly" to get the most effort/outcome situation. [...] Perhaps situations will settle and we'll see bigger or bolder moves. -- posted by firstdaffodils

On June 1, 2021, "President Biden traveled to Oklahoma to deliver remarks on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. Lauren Usher, a descendent of one of the victims of the massacre, introduced the president. Prior to his speech, the president met with three survivors of the 1921 massacre: Viola Fletcher [age 106], Hughes Van Ellis [Fletcher's younger brother, age 100], and Lessie Benningfield Randle [age 107]." (C-Span clip of speech). Excerpt: "My fellow Americans, this was not a riot. This was a massacre, among the worst in our history, but not the only one. [...] Millions of white Americans belonged to the Klan, and they weren’t even embarrassed by it; they were proud of it. And that hate became embedded systematically and systemically in our laws and our culture. We do ourselves no favors by pretending none of this ever happened or that it doesn’t impact us today, because it does still impact us today. We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know."

Transcript: Remarks by President Biden Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre (whitehouse.gov)
Press coverage: Biden decries ‘horrific’ Tulsa massacre in emotional speech (AP) The Tulsa massacre has only recently entered the national discourse — and the presidential visit put an even brighter spotlight on the event. Biden [...] also announced new measures he said could help narrow the wealth gap between races and reinvest in underserved communities by expanding access to homeownership and small-business ownership.
Joe Biden calls for US to confront its past on 100th anniversary of Tulsa massacre (The Guardian) President drew a through-line from racist violence in 1921 to recent displays of white supremacy in Charlottesville and the US Capitol
'Hell was unleashed': Biden urges reckoning on race at Tulsa massacre anniversary, taps Harris to lead on voting rights (USA Today) President Joe Biden called for the U.S. to "come to terms" with the darkest moments of its history Tuesday during a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, 100 years after a white mob burned the city's "Black Wall Street" to the ground, killing hundreds of Black Americans and forcing thousands from their homes. Biden brought a national spotlight to the Tulsa Race Massacre, long neglected and glossed over in history books, becoming the first president to visit Tulsa on an anniversary of the bloodiest race massacre in U.S. history.

“I come here to help fill the silence. Because in silence, wounds deepen," Biden said.

Part of Biden's 45-minute speech outlines new initiatives, summarized in
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Actions to Build Black Wealth and Narrow the Racial Wealth Gap (whitehouse.gov, June 1, 2021)
posted by Iris Gambol at 7:18 PM on June 17, 2021 [11 favorites]

Why "Juneteenth National Independence Day"? (This is great; the choice of name just strikes me as odd.)
posted by heatherlogan at 7:47 PM on June 17, 2021

I’m also curious about the name choice- I really doubt it was chosen lightly, and it seems to have struck a nerve with a few Republicans, although some will find any reason they can to obstruct.
posted by simra at 8:15 PM on June 17, 2021

I would suppose, since "independence" is the fancy US vernacular for "freedom", and even Texas, which was born from Mexico to preserve slavery, called its creation "independence"

So, kinda the same reason why civil unions are kinda crap, and marriage the legit goal

Also because Juneteeth is close to July 4th, I would think
posted by eustatic at 8:22 PM on June 17, 2021

Why "Juneteenth National Independence Day"? (This is great; the choice of name just strikes me as odd.)

My S.O.'s work is giving this holiday as padding on the Independence Day weekend.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:11 PM on June 17, 2021

I agree which is why I’m advocating for the elimination of the federal holidays of Christmas and Easter which excludes and divides non-Christians.

Easter isn’t a Federal Holiday and the last War on Christmas failed when Christmas routed their opponents, the Purtians, who then fled to America to escape. Christmas then crossed the ocean to beat them again just for the hell of it. Christmas is loved so much by Christians and non-Christians alike it’s elimination just isn’t in the cards.
posted by jmauro at 9:14 PM on June 17, 2021 [8 favorites]

Christmas knows no boundaries, you cannot defeat it.
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:37 PM on June 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

Juneteeth is close to July 4th

This is a feature, not a bug! I would have thought the "patriots" would be falling all over themselves at a two-week national Freedom Festival. Think of all the merch they could sell!

I think I learned about Juneteenth in elementary school, or at least when I was that age, but kind of on the same level as Cinco de Mayo or St Patrick's Day. Salad Bowl Multiculturalism was very in at the time.
posted by basalganglia at 3:01 AM on June 18, 2021 [4 favorites]

Juneteenth first became a day off from work for me last year. I'm a contractor where I work, but my employer recently decided that any holiday declared by THEIR employer is also a holiday for us. And when you work in banking, that's pretty nice because of all the banking holidays.

Virginia has come a long way since Lee-Jackson-King Day.
posted by emelenjr at 4:46 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

So who *actually* gets a day off from work tomorrow?

Me!

My company made it an official company holiday last summer. I like that it has fallen on a Friday because that makes it unique among the others, and which maybe will encourage folks to think about what inspired it. I think the Friday falling has been happenstance, so far, but maybe we will decide to make it official.
posted by notyou at 6:58 AM on June 18, 2021

Michael Harriot: Make Juneteenth Great Again: The Caucasians' Guide to Celebrating Juneteenth.

Left to your devices, Juneteenth might become a day when you parade around in African headwraps drinking Hennessy just like y’all celebrate Mexican Independence Day on May 5 by donning sombreros and taking shots of American tequila. So, to protect the legacy of this special day, The Root created this handy-dandy guide to help you become familiar with existing in spaces you don’t own.

posted by Nelson at 8:15 AM on June 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Welp, they just announced that we're getting a day off...on June 28 this year, it'll be on a more appropriate day in subsequent years.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:30 AM on June 18, 2021

So who *actually* gets a day off from work tomorrow?

The University of California announced this morning that Juneteenth will be a new systemwide holiday and will be observed on June 28th this year, then according to the federal calendar starting in 2022. Article: President Drake announces Juneteenth a new UC holiday
posted by Lexica at 11:25 AM on June 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I just called an office and the answering machine message let me know they'd be closed from December somethingth to January somethingth, "Happy holidays!" I guess they were taken by surprise.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:27 AM on June 18, 2021

So who *actually* gets a day off from work tomorrow?

Strangely enough, not this state employee who works on the island where the proclamation was made. (I know it's Fed holiday, not state.)

Admittedly, there is no realistic way my organization could have pulled it off so quickly, given the nature of our work.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:35 AM on June 18, 2021

A friend in Germany had her work Visa interview in Frankfurt today cancelled last minute due to the holiday after she'd already travelled there, so is scrambling to stay a few extra days. Suspect the last minute Fed holiday causing some isolate chaos outside the US as well. But yay Juneteenth!
posted by inflatablekiwi at 11:45 AM on June 18, 2021

As a federal employee I’m thrilled this passed, glad so many get a day to think about what the holiday means (we spent time discussing with my son so he understood the REASON for the holiday), but… not so excited that the passage came late on a day when time cards were due, because now we have a shit-ton of corrections to file next week. Could they not have pushed this through even a week earlier??
posted by caution live frogs at 11:59 AM on June 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can only imagine the frantic rescheduling of meetings etc. Oh well, there are too many meetings, anyway.

Yeah, that was my afternoon yesterday. "Thanks, Biden." (Happy that this is a holiday, just wishing we had not declared a federal holiday on the afternoon of the day before).
posted by Preserver at 12:35 PM on June 18, 2021

Just got a message from HR saying that it would be added to next calendar year's holiday list.
posted by mmascolino at 2:06 PM on June 18, 2021

Could they not have pushed this through even a week earlier??

Yeah, I'm glad we have a holiday for that now. The roll-out though... so they finally decided close to 2pm we were doing it here, effective tomorrow. Which sent every project into a scramble of having less than 2 hours to decide what work was critical, get holiday overtime approved, and notify the affected people. While all the departments were having to validate the weekend coverage plans were going to work for Friday too.

Meanwhile, the people on 4-10s with Friday as their RDO were initially told - well not exactly told, there was a sharepoint post made and everyone was on their own to hear about it and look it up - that their makeup holiday was Thursday. Yep, 75% through the work day, they found out it was their holiday.

Oh, and then many decided to go home anyway 'cause hey, at least a couple of hours early quitting time. Shortly after they all left, there was a "we changed our mind, the makeup holiday is now Monday" email. Meaning, everyone had to be called at home to tell them not to show up Monday and oh by the way you're gonna get charged annual leave for Thursday.

What a goddamn clown show. It wasn't exactly a big secret. They didn't even need to wait for it to be signed to make a contingency plan ahead of time. Lol, nah.
posted by ctmf at 2:06 PM on June 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

"Biden brought a national spotlight to the Tulsa Race Massacre, long neglected and glossed over in history books, becoming the first president to visit Tulsa on an anniversary of the bloodiest race massacre in U.S. history.

“I come here to help fill the silence. Because in silence, wounds deepen," Biden said."

These are definitely bold strides- along with honestly, despite my previous comment, many others! I actually think there has been a lot of spectacular change.

When I posted the commented, I'd continuously been hearing how "washy" Biden was, I'd perhaps even a little unintentionally posted to some of the perspective (and the washiness wasn't directed toward any of the aforementioned in this thread: mostly extensive conversations about Biden not reeling in Manchin or other bipartisan debate).

This is sound information. ^^
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:11 PM on June 19, 2021

Yeah, my previous comment can go somewhere else, there is a LOT happening right now!
posted by firstdaffodils at 11:25 PM on June 19, 2021