NEW: Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to propose making Juneteenth an official holiday in a state that was once home to the capital of the Confederacy.
ABCNews.comannounced Tuesday that he will propose making Juneteenth — a day that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. — an official holiday in a state that was once home to the capital of the Confederacy.
The holiday would be a paid day off for all state employees. Northam said he thinks Virginia would be only the second state to do so. The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, when news finally reached African Americans in Texas that President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves living in Confederate states two years earlier. When Union soldiers arrived in Galveston to bring the news that slavery had been abolished, former slaves celebrated.
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