NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee lawmakers are mulling a proposal advocated by the governor to make Juneteenth a state holiday.
On Tuesday, a Senate panel advanced the legislation backed by Governor Bill Lee. House lawmakers briefly stalled the bill hours later, but supporters say the bill has not been spiked. The June 19 holiday celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S. Lee has noted that Juneteenth is a federal holiday and a very important day in U.S. history.
A legislative fiscal note estimates that the new holiday would cost the state roughly $692,000 annually to compensate state employees who still would need to work.
In 2021, Gov. Lee signed a bill designating Juneteenth a day of special observance, but not a legal state holiday.
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.
It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.