California now celebrates Juneteenth as a state holiday

MENDOCINO Co., 6/19/23 — Today is Juneteenth, which honors the day in 1865 during which thousands of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas gained their freedom two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Today will be the first time California will formally recognize the day as a state holiday, due to recently passed legislation, although Juneteenth was first recognized as a federal holiday in 2021.

In Mendocino County, the Board of Supervisors have an agenda item to recognize this Juneteenth* as a county holiday on the June 20, 2023 regularly scheduled supervisors’ meeting, sponsored by the Mendocino County’s Racial Equity and Justice Committee (REAJC) and Supervisor Maureen Mulheren. However, county offices are open today; Mendocino College is closed.

The county’s agenda item notes:

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This Proclamation is submitted by members of Mendocino County’s Racial Equity and Justice Committee (REAJC), and Supervisor Mulheren. The REAJC was founded in 2020 with the mission to identify, expose and eliminate systemic racism for Mendocino County employees and stakeholders. REAJC goals include raising awareness of racial inequities in Mendocino County employment practices, decreasing systemic racism in hiring practices and increasing dialogue about systemic racism with staff, their supervisors and directors through trainings and discussions. Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States and is observed nationally on an annual basis on June 19. By this Proclamation, the REAJC hopes to increase knowledge of Juneteenth to all Mendocino County residents. 

Here’s Gov. Newsom’s proclamation for Juneteenth in full:

PROCLAMATION 
America does not only celebrate our independence on July 4. Each year on June 19, we look back to this day in 1865, on which Union General Gordon Granger led troops into Galveston, Texas, to announce the end of the Civil War and the insidious institution of slavery. Thousands of enslaved people in Texas, among the last to learn of their independence, were finally freed – more than two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
 
Over the next several decades, Black Americans who journeyed out of the South seeking better lives brought Juneteenth celebrations with them. The thousands who settled in California, especially in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, taught our state that America’s struggle for freedom did not end in 1776 or 1865, but continues to this day.
 
For the first time this year, California will celebrate Juneteenth as a state holiday, honoring the centuries of struggles and triumphs that have brought us to this moment. Amid misguided efforts to rewrite our nation’s history, California is committed to confronting the dark chapters of our past to continue moving forward in pursuit of a more perfect union.
 
This Juneteenth, I urge all Californians to reflect on the ongoing cause of freedom for Black Americans – remembering that, though General Granger’s announcement in 1865 called for “absolute equality,” that vision was, and remains, far from complete. Let us celebrate how far we have come and take stock of how far we must go to truly realize our nation’s founding ideals.

NOW THEREFORE I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim June 17, 2023, as “Juneteenth National Freedom Day: A Day of Observance.”
 
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 17^th day of June 2023.

GAVIN NEWSOM
Governor of California

*Editor’s note: this article has been corrected to clarify the agenda item proposed the county recognize Juneteenth on June 19, 2023, not as an ongoing county holiday.