House overwhelmingly votes to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, sending bill to Joe Biden

The House surpassed legislation Wednesday that would make June 19, or Juneteenth — the date commemorating the day news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas —a federal holiday.

The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act moved thru each chambers quickly, with the House passing it simply one day after the Senate, after it had been stalled in the upper chamber.

Now that is has exceeded through Congress, it will quickly be sent to President Joe Biden's desk, just days before the Juneteenth holiday Saturday.

The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act would grant each and every federal worker a day off to commemorate June 19, 1865, the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, discovered President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed enslaved African Americans in rebel states 2½ years earlier. The day is additionally acknowledged as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day.

The legislation passed in the House 415-14 Wednesday evening, mostly on a bipartisan basis. All these who voted against were Republicans. There were loud cheers from the House floor after its passage.

Markey stated the United States has in the past "failed to acknowledge, address, come to grips with our nation's authentic sin of slavery. We can't ignore the toll that it took, and we can't flip away." The invoice "acknowledges the ache and the struggling of generations of slaves and innocents."

Jackson Lee stated she sees a "racial divide crumbled, being crushed" below a "momentous vote that brings collectively people who apprehend the value of freedom. And that is what Juneteenth is all about."