Nevada’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, enacted Assembly Bill 140 on Thursday, making Juneteenth an official holiday. A lot of state workers can get a day off due to the vacation.
The state Senate voted 19 to 2 in favor of the measure, and the state Assembly 40 to 1.
“Juneteenth celebrates the demise of slavery in the United States, and it’s an honor that Nevada is going to celebrate the occasion on a state and federal level,” Lombardo stated in a statement released by spokeswoman Elizabeth Ray.
Over 2 years after President Abraham Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation, which put a stop to slavery in the US, Juneteenth honors the day, June 19, 1865, when Black Americans who had been held in slavery in Galveston, Texas, realized they had become free.
In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday under President Biden.