Juneteenth Could Be A Public Holiday In South Brunswick This Year

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — South Brunswick officials are planning to declare Juneteenth a public holiday in the township this year.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, a resolution was brought up on the consent agenda declaring Juneteenth, June 19, as an Observed Public Holiday in the Township. Juneteenth is currently a designated floating holiday for the township.

The resolution was introduced on Tuesday and will now go to the next meeting for action, where council members are expected to vote on it.

If Council adopts the resolution at the next meeting, all municipal offices will be closed on June 19 this year.

Juneteenth is the oldest-known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday commemorates June 19, the day on which federal troops freed the last of the enslaved people in the country.

Even though the Emancipation Proclamation declared that all enslaved people in the Confederate States were freed as of Jan. 1, 1863, Southern owners didn't follow the order while the Civil War was being fought.

As a result, enslaved people in Texas weren't freed until more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 1865. By this time, Texas had an estimated 250,000 enslaved people.

Around 2,000 federal troops led by Major Gen. Gordon Granger marched into Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, and read General Order No. 3, which announced that enslaved people in Texas were now freed "in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States." Texas was the last state of the Confederacy to have people in slavery.

Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth a state holiday, in 1980.

President Joe Biden signed legislation making it a national holiday on June 17, 2021, the first holiday to be added to the list of federal holidays since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

Have a correction or a news tip? Email sarah.salvadore@patch.com