LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The video shown above is from June 2021.
According to Mayor Frank Scott Jr., with the passage of Tuesday night’s 2022 budget, Juneteenth is officially a holiday in the City of Little Rock.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — two months after the Confederacy had surrendered. That was also about 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Southern states.
In June 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation establishing a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery, saying he believes it will go down as one of the greatest honors he has as president.
Biden signed into law a bill to make Juneteenth, or June 19, the 12th federal holiday. It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.
Now, the City of Little Rock will observe Juneteenth as an official holiday.