Biden signs 'Juneteenth' bill, asks U.S. to reflect on slavery's 'terrible toll'

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris signed a bill into law yesterday to make June 19 a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans, as the White House pushes to address the country's historical injustices.

The bill, which was passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after clearing the Senate unanimously, marks the day in 1865 when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Texas that they had been made free two years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.

"Juneteenth marks both a long hard night of slavery subjugation and a promise of a brighter morning to come," Biden said. The day is a reminder of the "terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take."

European colonists first forcibly brought enslaved Africans by ship to the British colonies that became the United States in the 1600s; millions of people were legally owned there until the 13th Amendment passed in 1865.

"Great nations don't ignore their most painful moments...they embrace them," Biden told a room filled with about 80 members of Congress, community leaders and activists including 94-year-old Opal Lee, who campaigned for decades to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Vice President Harris reminded the White House guests that they were gathered in a "house built by enslaved people,"