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Sheila Jackson Lee: It took a long, hard
fight to make Juneteenth a national
holiday | Opinion
By Sheila Jackson Lee
June 18, 2024
President Joe Biden signs the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, in the East Room of the White
House, on June 17, 2021. From left, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Danny Davis, Opal Lee, Sen. Tina Smith, Vice
President Kamala Harris (obscured), Rep. James Clyburn, Sen. Raphael Warnock, Sen. John Cornyn, Rep.
Joyce Beatty, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
Evan Vucci/AP
On June 19, 1865 — months after the Civil War ended, and more than two years
after the Emancipation Proclamation — Union troops arrived in the Port of
Galveston. They both proclaimed an end to slavery and provided the muscle to
back up the proclamation. In Texas, freedom had been a long time coming.
A year later, Black Texans began to mark the date with Juneteenth celebrations.
The unofficial holiday came to recognize African American culture and each
generation’s sacrifice and contributions toward making America live up to its
promise. Because of that work, we Americans have formed a more perfect
union — one that recognizes our country’s diversity as its strength.
But official nationwide recognition of Juneteenth, like freedom, was a long time
coming.
Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday. The late
state Rep. Al Edwards introduced the legislation here in 1979.
My work to establish a Juneteenth federal holiday began in 2013, when in
Congress, I introduced my first Juneteenth Resolution to recognize the day’s
historic significance. I continued to introduce a resolution each year.
outdoors, on public land
Then, in 2020, the world witnessed George Floyd gasping for help while a
Minneapolis police officer suffocated him with his knee for nearly nine minutes.
Shortly afterward, streets across the nation filled with marches.
I could feel the same emotion and response in the halls of Congress. It was
apparent when I sent out a “Dear Colleague” seeking support from my fellow
members of Congress to join as cosponsors of my Juneteenth Resolution. It was
introduced on June 15, 2020, with over 200 original sponsors, and reached a
total of 214 bipartisan cosponsors before being adopted by the House of
Representatives on June 30.
That recognition of the day’s significance was a solid start, and I knew the time
had arrived for Juneteenth to become a full-fledged federal holiday. I tasked my
policy director, Lillie Coney, to have that bill drafted for introduction, and I sent
another “Dear Colleague” letter to my colleagues in the House.
We ran into technical trouble. When I first introduced the bill, the House
parliamentarian blocked its enrollment or listing as a House Bill. My bill had
specified June 19 as the date for Juneteenth. When else, after all, would you
celebrate a holiday named “Juneteenth?”
But House procedural rules regarding federal holidays prohibit naming specific
dates. So we removed “June 19” from the House bill, and I introduced the revised
bill, H.R. 7232, on June 18, 2020. The Congressional Research Service told my
staff that it was the first bill ever introduced in the history of the House or Senate
that aimed to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
READ ALSO: New to Juneteenth? Know the history before you celebrate.
Following the introduction of H.R. 7232, Sen. Ed Markey’s staff reached out to
collaborate. Markey introduced the Senate version of my bill with only one
difference: The Senate version included the date June 19. No rule in the Senate
prohibited specifying the date.
For the first time, both the House and the Senate adopted their respective
Juneteenth resolutions. But the 116th Congress ended without the act being
passed.
So in 2021, in the 117th Congress, Sen. Markey and I simultaneously introduced
Juneteenth bills in the House and Senate.
The House did not advance H.R. 1320. But if the companion bill, S. 475, passed in
the Senate, it would come back to the House for a vote, so my efforts shifted
toward getting allies in the Senate to pass that version. My longtime Juneteenth
partner, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, joined this effort wholeheartedly and became
the lead Republican sponsor of the Markey bill.
We could count on only the votes of the bill’s 54 cosponsors, and in the Senate, if
fewer than 60 Senators do not agree to a vote on a bill, it will not proceed. We
needed six more senators.
We picked up three cosponsors in March, and two more in May.
Then, on June 8, my dear friend Sen. Raphael G. Warnock of Georgia became the
60th senator to sign on. Sen. Warnock is the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer
Baptist Church, the former pulpit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nearly 30
years after the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday was established, it was
poetic that Sen. Warnock was the deciding factor for Juneteenth.
The Senate passed its bill on June 15, and the House followed suit a day later.
President Joe Biden was in Europe the day the House passed the bill, but
returned to the U.S. to sign the bill into law. He signed it on June 17 — just in time
for the first Federal Juneteenth National Holiday to take place on June 18. (It was
June 18 because June 19 fell on a Saturday that year.)
The White House invited me to the official signing ceremony, along with the
entire Congressional Black Caucus and Ms. Opal Lee, the Texas activist often
called “the grandmother of Juneteenth.”
At last, the United States had recognized a holiday to commemorate the end of
chattel slavery — America’s original sin — and to celebrate the perseverance
that has been the hallmark of the African American struggle for equity and
equality. I am proud to have been part of it.
Sheila Jackson Lee represented the Texas 18th Congressional District.
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REST IN POWER - You showed us the way!!
Sheila Jackson Lee represented Texas 18th Congressional District.
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