More US companies give day off for Juneteenth

Support grows to make the celebration a federal holiday

NEW YORK — An unprecedented number of U.S. companies gave employees off for Juneteenth on Friday, raising hopes that the day commemorating the end of slavery could someday become a true national celebration.

The momentum could hinge, however, on whether the country’s largest employer — the federal government — joins the trend. The date — June 19 — is not a federal holiday, and many nonblack Americans have only recently become of aware of the day

More than 460 companies, including Nike, Twitter and Lyft, have committed to observing Juneteenth, with the majority offering a paid day off, according to Hella Creative, a group of black creative professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area that launched an initiative to galvanize corporate support for making the day an official holiday.

It’s a potential sea change, spreading awareness of the date beyond African

Americans who have long celebrated it with cookouts, parades and community festivals.

“We’ve explained our lives away as black people. We’ve had to explain and define black history,” said Miles Dotson, co-Founder of Hella Creative. “Our hope is that we’ve said it enough times that folks outside of ourselves see that they are equally part of this picture.”

Juneteenth commemorates the day when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free 155 years ago in Galveston, Texas, where Union soldiers brought them the news two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

This year, in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, Juneteenth is expected to be a day of racial justice protests, a key driver behind companies deciding to mark the day. Other prominent corporations giving employees time off include Target, Best Buy and the NFL.

“As a black person, I have been ‘ sat down’ by older relatives and told the stories of disenfranchisement, discrimination, and the multiple exclusions they faced,” said Philip Thompson, a team leader at stock images provider Shutterstock, which declared Juneteenth a permanent company holiday.

“After 155 years, it is truly an emotional moment to know that society is beginning to acknowledge black freedom struggles,” he said.

Smaller businesses are following suit, particularly those whose employees have engaged in the Black Lives Matter movement, which has reverberated worldwide after Floyd’s death.

The question is whether the fervor will last and where it will ultimately lead. Only a small minority of U.S. companies are observing Juneteenth, and not all have committed to do so beyond this year.

Declaring the date a federal holiday would add considerable momentum, and there is growing support for the idea. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, introduced legislation Thursday to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, introduced a similar bill in the House.