Happy Juneteenth National Independence Day.

[Skids]

Never heard of it? Me either.

Was up early and thought I'd check the US market but she's closed for this public holiday.
A day they celebrate the end of slavery 19th June 1865.

I guess it's too much like good news for it to be mentioned on our 6 o'clock news. They'd rather highlight a story about charges against Don Trump or continue to bash our armed forces or maybe a story on how badly juvenile criminals are treated in detention...... pathetic.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

[David]

I’m all for new public holidays that commemorate important historical events, so this seems like a good initiative on the Biden administration’s part. The end of slavery is certainly a more relevant occasion to commemorate in America than, say, a monarch’s birthday or religious holiday is in Australia, and it’d be nice if we could come up with a few new ones here too.

I don’t watch TV news so can’t comment on where a foreign country’s public holiday is appearing in news bulletins or whether it should be (I doubt American TV news devotes any segments to ANZAC Day, by way of comparison), but I assume it would have been reported on here back when Juneteenth was declared a public holiday two years ago: see e.g. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/ ... /100224358

How would you like to see it covered?

[Skids]

Just mentioned I guess. I'd never heard of it before. Maybe just a short snip on the news? Like I said, our stations are quickly jump on a story about Trump, regardless of the content.... sensationalism seems to be the priority in reporting world news in the present day.

I wouldn't go giving Biden the credit, he probably didn't even know what he was signing off on.... from the link you posted...

The vast majority of states already recognise Juneteenth as a holiday or have an official observance
The House voted 415-14 on Wednesday local time to make Juneteenth, or June 19, the nation's 12th federal holiday.

The bill now goes to US President Joe Biden's desk, and he is expected to sign it into law.

[stui magpie]

It's an interesting one, and yeah I wouldn't give Biden any credit for just signing what's put in front of him.

In principle, the idea of a public holiday to recognise the official end of slavery in the USA sounds like a good idea, but something still jars with me.

Slavery may have officially ended back in the late 1800's, but the blacks were serious second class citizens for at least the next 100 years after. They basically had Apartheid conditions in most states well into the mid/late 1900's.

It's having a public holiday to commemorate stopping doing something that should never have been done in the first place.