ST. PAUL, Minn. – A bill to make Juneteenth a state holiday has won approval from the Minnesota Senate’s State and Local Government Committee. The bill would make June 19 a paid holiday for state employees – on the anniversary of the day in 1865 when Union forces declared the end of slavery when they arrived in Galveston, Texas. The bill was introduced by Senator Bobby Joe Champion, a Minneapolis Democrat. A companion bill in the House has been introduced by Ruth Richardson, a Democrat from Mendota Heights. On the Senate side, the bill now goes to the Education Policy Committee. Twenty-two states have made Juneteenth a holiday, starting in 1980 in Texas. So too has the federal government.
Verbatim
Champion: “Great nations do not ignore the most painful moments — they face them. We grow stronger as a country and state when we honestly confront our past injustices, including the profound suffering and injustice wrought by slavery and generations of segregation and discrimination against Black Americans.”
Champion. First black president of the Minnesota Senate.