U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris signed a bill into law on Thursday to make June 19 a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans as the White House pushes to address the country's historical injustices.
The bill, which was passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after clearing the Senate unanimously, marks the day in 1865 when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Texas that they had been made free two years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.
"Juneteenth marks both a long hard night of slavery subjugation and a promise of a brighter morning to come," Biden said. The day is a reminder of the "terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take."