A Company Holiday for Juneteenth Isn’t 'Nice' – It’s Essential for Equity

In 2020, America faced a racial reckoning after the high-profile murders of innocent Black people by police and vigilantes. In its quest to make racial equity and justice the norm for Black Americans, Black Lives Matter protests spread rapidly across America, becoming the largest civil rights movement on the globe. In the weeks after the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, some millions of Americans participated in demonstrations against anti-Black brutality.¹

The movement's escalation wasn't limited to America's streets. It became a cry for U.S. corporations to rethink whether they reflected equity for Black employees in their organizational policies and programs. Acting to advance diversity, equity and inclusion beyond traditional efforts, corporate America engaged in multiple initiatives aimed at addressing racial disparities in the workplace.²

This ranged from increasing access to capital and opportunities for Black-owned businesses to employers amplifying Black culture within their organizations.³ For many, that included making Juneteenth, the celebration of the official end of Black enslavement in America, a companywide holiday.

On June 6, 2020, Twitter made a public commitment to recalibrating its culture. Their announcement stated, “Both Twitter and Square are making #Juneteenth (June 19th) a company holiday in the U.S., forevermore. A day for celebration, education and connection.”⁴

 

Short for “June 19th,” the observance represents the day in 1865 when federal troops entered Galveston, Texas, taking control of the state and ending enslavement for that state's African Americans. While Lincoln's September 1862 emancipation proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863, Black people remained enslaved in areas lacking the presence of Union troops to enforce it, including Texas.

Slaves there were the last in America to receive full freedom when U.S. General Gordon Granger, standing on Texas soil, recited General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” The ratification of the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the U.S. in 1865.

“That makes Juneteenth the anniversary of when slavery actually ended in the United States," explained Alaina Morgan, assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California specializing in race and ethnicity in America and the African Diaspora.

A celebration was organized as an annual event called “Jubilee Day” in 1866 by freed Black people in Texas. From then through the mid-20th century, the annual celebration increased throughout the South and surged in popularity nationwide after the Civil Rights movement. In 1979, Texas made Juneteenth an official holiday, and it's now a state holiday in 47 states.

The day is commemorated with church services, food, music, parties and African American-themed cultural events. It is tradition to fly the red, black and green African American liberation flag and sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” James Weldon Johnson wrote this song, called the Black National Anthem, as a poem which he performed for Abraham Lincoln's birthday in 1900. His brother, John Rosamond, put the poem to music in 1905.

Today, Juneteenth, the Black National Anthem and the African American liberation flag all represent a call to racial equity and justice. This is something many Americans, regardless of race, have begun demanding.