MONTGOMERY, Alabama. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has reauthorized Juneteenth — the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States — as a state holiday, while legislative efforts to make it a permanent holiday in the state have so far failed.
Ivey’s office said Monday that June 19 will be a holiday for public employees, coinciding with the federal holiday. The eleventh month has been a federal holiday since 2021. This will be the fourth year that Ivey has designated it as a state holiday.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned from Union soldiers that they were free. The news came two months after the end of the Civil War and about two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
It would take action by the Alabama Legislature to make Juneteenth a permanent state holiday. There have been efforts to do so either to abolish or rename the three Confederate-related state holidays. So far, none of these efforts have been successful.
A bill proposed this year would have added June 16 as a permanent holiday. It would have allowed state employees to choose whether they wanted to take off work that day or Jefferson Davis’ birthday. The state House of Representatives approved the bill, but it did not receive a vote in the Alabama Senate.
Alabama has three state holidays related to Confederates closing state offices. Alabama marks Confederate Memorial Day in April and Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ birthday in June. The state jointly celebrates Robert E. Lee Day with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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