Juneteenth holiday welcomed as racial justice step

President Joe Biden has signed legislation Thursday establishing a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery.

Biden signed into law a bill to make Juneteenth, or June 19, the 12th federal holiday.

Robin Rue Simmons, a reparations leader in Evanston, Illinois, welcomed the news.

"We know that it is one step of many ahead of us towards racial justice," Simmons says.

The U.S. government announced Thursday that most federal government employees will observe the new holiday Friday because June 19 falls on Saturday this year.

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.

IMAGE: AP