UC Merced Professor On How Juneteenth Is A National Reminder Of Freedom And Equality

Yesterday, President Biden signed a bill to make June 19th, known as Juneteenth, a federal holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers brought word to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas that they were free, roughly 2 ½ years after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. UC Merced Associate Professor of History Kevin Dawson published a column in the Sacramento Bee last year calling on the federal government to recognize the day as a holiday. Valley Edition Host Kathleen Schock checked in with him about the significance of this week’s news.