MORE U.S. WORKERS GETTING JUNETEENTH OFF AS AWARENESS GROWS

A unprecedented number of U.S. companies are giving 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 19th — is not a federal holiday, and many non-black 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 HellaCreative, 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, coFounder of HellaCreative. “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 year 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 killing of George Floyd,

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, J.C. Penney, Best Buy, the NFL and J.P. Morgan Chase.

“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 and inspired multiracial protests.

Lori Rosen, owner of a small public relations firm in New York City, had never heard of Juneteenth until recently. But she decided to give her 16 employees the

AP PHOTO/CHRIS O’MEARA People raise their arms in solidarity as Sierra Davis Sanders and Ericka Still perform during a Juneteenth 2020celebration outside the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum Friday, June 19, 2020, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Juneteenth marks the day in 1865when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure all enslaved people be freed.

(AP PHOTO/RICHARD DREW, FILE) In this Feb. 8, 2018file photo, the logo for Twitter is displayed above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. More than 460companies, including Nike, Twitter and Lyft, have joined a pledge to observe Juneteenth, with the majority offering a paid day off, according to HellaCreative, a group of black creative professionals in the Bay Area that launched the initiative as part of a campaign to make the day a federal holiday.