NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Nashville Mayor John Cooper says he plans on signing an executive order to make Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S., an official paid holiday for city employees.
According to a news release, Cooper will sign the directive on Thursday.
Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day and Freedom Day, commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers told enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, that they were free. It was two months after the Confederacy surrendered and more than two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
A proposal to make Juneteenth an official statewide paid holiday stalled in the GOP-controlled General Assembly earlier this year. The bill has failed to gain traction even though Gov. Bill Lee set aside funds for the measure in his proposed spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.
The federal government made it an official holiday last year.