SEATTLE (AP) — President Joe Biden this week signed legislation establishing a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery – a move state lawmakers made for Washington state earlier this year. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee last month signed a measure making Juneteenth a legal state paid holiday, starting in 2022. In 2007, the Legislature had designated Juneteenth as a day of remembrance. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered. That was also about 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Southern states. It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.
Juneteenth becomes official state holiday in WA in 2022
