Columbia has a new holiday as city council votes to recognize Juneteenth
There’s a new official city holiday in Columbia — Juneteenth.
Columbia’s city council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution to recognize the annual celebration of the end of slavery and the liberation of Black Americans on Tuesday. It will be observed for the first time on June 19, 2021.
“This is a watershed moment, thank you all for everyone recognizing the importance of us moving forward together,” Mayor Steve Benjamin said during the council’s meeting. “We fell directly into the pandemic, so we have not yet had a chance to really celebrate the adoption of the new city flag, which speaks really very directly to the heart of inclusion and inclusive growth as a community. And I think this is a natural next step to recognizing the end of one of the darkest periods in history.”
Juneteenth is commemorated annually by many communities on June 19 — on that date in 1865, the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached what were believed to be the last enslaved people in the territory of the former Confederacy, when a Union general formally proclaimed emancipation in the state of Texas.
The holiday was the subject of broader, heightened interest in 2020, as it coincided with a wave of anti-racist action in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans. Cities that approved new recognition of the holiday this year include New York City, Honolulu and Portland, Oregon.
There was also federal legislation introduced to make Juneteenth a national holiday, per NBC News. All told, 47 states and the District of Columbia either recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or an observance.
In South Carolina, the state legislature declared Juneteenth a “celebration of freedom” in 2008, although the holiday is not a paid day off for state employees.
“Our city has always been a leader. We were the first city to make Martin Luther King Day a holiday in the state of South Carolina,” Councilwoman Tameika Isaac Devine said. “I hope that other states will follow our lead on this as well, but I certainly hope that we can use this day as a day to celebrate our culture and the contributions that African Americans have had, not just to Columbia, but to our state and our nation and and really utilize this as an opportunity to not just bring our community together, but also to educate us, because a lot of people don’t really know our history.”
Columbia currently observes 10 paid holidays — New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and the day after, Christmas Day and a day associated with Christmas. This schedule affects more than 2,300 city employees
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 5:49 PM.
