Will federal employees get Juneteenth off?
Most federal employees will get time off on the Friday before Juneteenth after President Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a national holiday. Juneteenth is the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Day was made a holiday in 1983 and will become the 11th federal holiday to be recognized by the federal government in the U.S. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management said Thursday that most employees will observe the Juneteenth holiday on Friday because Juneteenth falls on a Saturday this year. Today @POTUS will sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, establishing June 19th as a federal holiday. As the 19th falls on a Saturday, most federal employees will observe the holiday tomorrow, June 18th.  U.S. Office of Personnel Management (@USOPM) June 17, 2021  It is unclear if U.S. Post Offices will remain open and mail will be delivered because Juneteenth is not yet on its schedule of federal holidays. It is advisable to call your local post office for operating hours as they may vary. Juneteenth, which is on June 19, 2021, celebrates the day in 1865 when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, learned that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them. It is a state holiday in New Jersey and it is now a federal holiday after President Biden signed the bills passed by the House and the Senate. The day commemorates the moment when Union troops told the remaining enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, that all people who were still enslaved at the time should be freed according to the Emancipation Proclamation. They were the last slaves to hear of their freedom because Texas was considered to be a remote state at the time. Juneteenth took place more than a month after the Civil Wars end and 900 days after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth has been celebrated in different parts of the U.S. for more than a century, and it is considered to be the longest running Black holiday in the U.S. But it gained traction in 2020 after Black Lives Matter campaigned for it to become a national holiday. Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com  Katherine Rodriguez can be reached at krodriguez@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us at nj.com/tips.