Locals Say Fight for Equality Not Over After Biden Signs Bill Making Juneteenth Federal Holiday

President Joe Biden signed a bill on Friday making Juneteenth a national holiday after the House and the Senate passed the bill in a rare showing of bipartisanship, but locals told Pasadena Now the fight for equality continues.

“Juneteenth has gone from relatively obscure regionalized celebrations that just appeared on most people’s radars for the first time in 2020 to a federal holiday in just under a year,” said Patrice Marshall McKenzie, who sits on the city’s Redistricting Task Force, which advises the City Council on the city’s voting districts every 10 years to guarantee compliance with federal voting laws.

African Americans had been denied the right to vote for decades.

“It is hard to see this outward acknowledgment of Juneteenth as a ‘win’ because there has been no political courage at the federal level to move on crucial policy issues like the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act or any significant momentum for HR 40 which would only establish a commission to study and develop reparations proposals for Black people,” said McKenzie.

“Meanwhile, states are actively passing legislation to suppress the rights of Black voters and outlaw critical race theory, which essentially prohibits educators from teaching students why a holiday like Juneteenth exists in the first place. The dichotomy of these two realities causes me to struggle to find a reason for jubilation when the road to progress seems to grow exponentially in obstacles,” she said.

“However, I still carry a spirit of resilience that keeps me focused on the work ahead to attain true liberation so that all Black people will live in a world that affirms, uplifts and genuinely values our humanity.”

Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19 and commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. It is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the slaves there were free.

“Making Juneteenth a federal holiday marks an important step in America acknowledging the horror, abuse, and set back that it has caused the African-American community” said Allen Edson, President NAACP PASADENA “Commemorating this day allows us to continue to pay respect to our ancestors that endured a lot of abuse and sacrifice in order for us to have the life we live today”

Pasadena was incorporated on June 19, 1886 and many abolitionists came to the Pasadena/Altadena area, including John Brown’s son Owen and Ellen Garrison Clark.

The Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in confederate states waging war against the union, leaving Black people in border states that remained loyal to the Union slaves, a fact consistently omitted from history books.

And African Americans in some places were forced to endure brutality due to the lack of available Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order which went into effect on Jan. 1. 1863.

However, with the surrender of General Robert E. Lee in April 1865, and the arrival of Gen. Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

“The wheels of justice oftentimes turn slowly, but ever so finely,” said Councilman John Kennedy. “Don’t go for the head fake, the true equalizer in America is obtaining a quality education and the ability to access money/capital to fund your dreams, whatever they are.”

Kennedy said Juneteenth, in his view, is simply another manifestation that justice for the formerly enslaved stills comes from a sophisticated fight.

“So, we will not go for the head fake, we will fight on until justice is fully won for all people in the United States, but particularly African Americans,” Kennedy said. “I applaud the United States Congress for working together to make Juneteenth a national holiday!”

The call to declare Juneteenth a national holiday is more than a decade old. Last year it gained steam when Nike and Twitter said they would allow employees to take the day off with pay, after nationwide protests following the fatal encounter between police and George Floyd.

NIKE CEO John Donahue called Juneteenth an “important opportunity to better commemorate and celebrate Black history and culture” in a memo to employees last year.

Officials at Twitter have also announced they would be off with pay on Juneteenth.

“I realized over this year so many milestones have taken place,” said Florence Annang, who sits on the city’s police oversight commission. “Yet, let us not get comfortable. We have not arrived. The journey continues. Yes, it’s slow, but we must be relentless and fully informed in the face of each obstacle of injustice and know as a community to achieve change for all, we must keep mobilizing to increase community power crossing color, culture and economic lines to let the political class absolutely know after our vote our voice still matters. Black lives, Black voices, Black futures, Black economics absolutely matter, period.”