Juneteenth National Independence Day 2027

The newest federal holiday

Juneteenth National Independence Day is one of the eleven federal holidays listed in 5 U.S.C. 6103. Federal employees get a paid day off, the U.S. Postal Service suspends regular delivery, banks follow the Federal Reserve and close, and the NYSE and Nasdaq do not trade. It is also a paid state holiday for state employees in a majority of states and the District of Columbia. Private employers are not required to close, and observance in the private sector is still uneven: many large companies, universities and school districts treat it as a holiday, while many small businesses stay open.

Why June 19

The holiday is fixed to June 19. When that date falls on a Saturday, federal employees observe it on Friday, June 18; when it falls on a Sunday, on Monday, June 20. Most states with a paid holiday apply the same shift. A few states handle the date differently! New Jersey observes the third Friday in June. Utah has moved the holiday to the Monday before June 19 in years when the date falls midweek, though a statute amendmant moves it to the standard rule from 2027. Arkansas, Iowa and Montana mark a day of observance on the third Saturday in June with no day off.

What happened in Galveston in 1865

President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, but it could only be enfocred where Union troops were present. Texas, the most remote Confederate state, saw little fighting, and slavery continued there for more than two years after the proclamation. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order No. 3, announcing that all enslaved people in Texas were free and that the reletionship between former masetrs and slaevs was now one of employer and hired labor. Roughly 250,000 enslaved Texans were affected - slavery was abolished nationwide when the 13th Amendment was ratified in December 1865.

Freed Texans held the first anniversary celebrations in 1866, often under the name Jubilee Day. In 1872 Black community leaders in Houston, led by the Reverend Jack Yates, poled $1,000 to buy ten acres for their celebrations; the site is still called Emancipation Park. Texas made June 19 a paid state holiday through a 1979 bill sponsored by State Representative Al Edwards, effective January 1, 1980. Decades of advocacy followed, most visibly by Fort Worth activist Opal Lee, who walked from Texas to Washington in her late eighties to press for national recognition. The Senate passed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act unanimously on June 15, 2021, the House approved it 415 to 14 the next day, and President Joe Biden signed it on June 17, 2021, as Public Law 117-17. It was the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.

How Juneteenth is celebrated

Traditions grew out of the Texas celebrations: parades, rodeos, church services, family reunions, readings of General Order No. 3 and the Emancipation Proclamation, and barbecues, red foods and drinks such as red velvet cake, watermelon and strawberry soda are a long-standing feature, symbolizing resilience. Cities now host festivals, concerts and Miss Juneteenth pageants, and museums such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture program events around the date.

State by state

Texas still calls the day Emancipation Day and treats it as a partial-staffing holiday, so state agencies stay open with skeleton crews. Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Utah use the name Juneteenth National Freedom Day, and Massachusetts calls it Juneteenth Independence Day. Louisiana observes it by annual gubernatorial proclamation. In states such as Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Wyoming it is a recognized observance without a paid day off, so state offices there remain open even though federal offices close.