Juneteenth now full official holiday

WEST CHESTER » Chester County offices will now be closed on June 21, 2021, and for future Mondays in mid- June in honor of the celebration of Juneteenth, the day traditionally thought of as the end of slavery in the United States.

On Thursday, the county commissioners voted unanimously to add the date as a full paid holiday for its employees, changing from the practice this year of offering it as one of the “floating” holidays that employees could opt to take. Now, all workers will have the day to think and reflect on the nation’s history with slavery and the county’s place in the fight to end it.

All three commissioners said they were happy with the addition.

“We think it’s important to celebrate the emancipation here in Chester County, one of the leaders in the anti- slavery movement,” said commissioners Vice Chairman Josh Maxwell on Tuesday, when the county’s new calendar of holidays was presented. “I think it is important that Chester County takes the opportunity to celebrate this important date in our history.

“Chester County, whether it’s the ( presence of) the Underground Railroad or something other, has a significant history of supporting the emancipation of slaves,” said Commissioner Michelle Kichline, the board sole’s Republican. “This is something all three commissioners are supportive of.” She noted that the Tredyffrin- Easttown School District, where she and commissioners Chairwoman Marian Moskowitz, live, was among the first districts In the state, if not the nation, to integrate.

“Chester County has been at the forefront of the equality movement,” she said. “This is one way of recognizing that.”

Juneteenth is tied to the Emancipation Proclamation, the document signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 that declared slaves held in the Southern states freed. But it couldn’t be enforced in many places until after the Civil War ended in 1865.

Those former slaveowners in the South were then legally required to inform their slaves that they were now free, but many of them

refused to do so. It was June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his Union troops arrived at Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free, the last place in the nation to hear the news.

While symbolically important, this did not end slavery in the United States. That did not occur until the passage of the 13th Amendment several months later, in December 1865.

Historians say the first known Juneteenth celebrations began in 1866 and spread across the country as African Americans migrated to new cities. Most states, including Pennsylvania beginning last year, now recognize it as a holiday, although employers are not required to do so. Pennsylvania lawmakers typically recognize the day by passing nonbinding resolutions.

Although former county commissioner Terence Farrell, who is Black, had long taken part in informal Juneteenth celebrations, the county did not recognize it until this year, when it was offered as a floating holiday, in contrast to surrounding counties like Montgomery County, where it was a full holiday.

County Administrator Bobby Kagel said the reception from employees convinced county officials that it was proper to move it to a full holiday.

“When the announcement came out this year about the holiday being offered as a floating holiday, a number of employees reached out to say thank you,” Kagel said. “They were just overwhelmed that the county would recognize such an important day.