Push to have Juneteenth recognized as holiday in City of Tonawanda

There"s a push to have Juneteenth recognized as a holiday in City of Tonawanda. With Juneteenth not being recognized as a holiday in the City of Tonawanda on Monday, some local leaders led a call to action. During a Sunday news conference held at City Hall, Erie County Democratic Chair Jeremy Zellner asked for city offices to be closed Monday to observe Juneteenth, which became a federally observed holiday in 2021. “Last June, President Biden signed legislation establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday, which New York had already done on a state level in October 2020,” Zellner said in a statement. “And the reason is simple: Juneteenth commemorates a monumental moment in American history that stands with July 4 as a declaration of independence, liberty, and equality for every citizen protected by our Constitution.\nJuneteenth recognizes that day in 1865 when Union troops arrived at Galveston Bay, Texas, after the Civil War. Enslaved people in the Confederate states were declared legally free with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But the proclamation couldn"t be enforced in places still under Confederate control. For the enslaved people of Texas, freedom wouldn"t come until after the end of the Civil War. On June 19, 1865, Union Major Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in Galveston Bay, announcing that the quarter million enslaved Black people in Texas were free by executive decree. Zellner called on his hometown mayor, John White, to close city offices Monday to observe the federal holiday and the significance behind it. “Mayor White claims that labor contracts prevent him from enacting a Juneteenth holiday, but that is not a credible reason to avoid doing the right thing. Any such issues should have been worked out in advance, not raised on the eve of the holiday itself,” Zellner said. “Especially at a moment when (Tonawanda"s) neighboring City of Buffalo has suffered a horrific, racist hate crime, the failure to honor this milestone is unconscionable.\nhttps://www.wgrz.com/article/entertainment/events/juneteenth/juneteenth-not-recognized-as-holiday-city-of-tonawanda/71-b9ffe3f5-de7e-4fac-aea6-87e957e68b26


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