Sign Juneteenth News Today

And marches and then the general and most common tradition a large cookout or outdoor picnic in celebration. and if you have ever been to galveston as i have for juneteenth those are the things you almost always see and experience. theres a parade or march and a cookout. this year i think theres some added certainly significance in that the rest of the country has joined in recognizing the significance of this date. it is certainly important to note that there are many emancipation traditions ar...

Restrictions putt in place. thank you, amanda. for the first time ever americans are commemorating the newest federal holiday today, juneteenth. celebrations are held coast to coast marking the day when the last enslaved people in america learned they were free in texas in 1865. two years after the emancipation proclamation was signed. marches and street parties and prayers have been going on and homage is paid to george floyd. nbcs antonio hilton and janelle ross are covering this. antonio, t...

>> my reaction was like, omg. i am so excited that it is officially now a national holiday. and we worked hard to push for it. we was going around telling people to sign petitions. even when i was hanging out with friends, i said, hey, you know, sign the petition. lets make it a national holiday. its okay, youre just putting your name. now that the hard work has paid off, im so blessed and honored to be part of this history of making juneteenth day a national holiday. >> why did you want to be a...

Festivals, cookouts but this is a community thats recognizing juneteenth for sometime. this festival has been happening more than a decade and while many of the organizers are happy that the rest of the country is catching up and it is a national holiday they see this as really not anything different from what they wanted to celebrate and bring attention to regardless and in the past. look at this t-shirt that many folks picked up. still freeish and still fighting. and thats really the overridin...

Welcome back. something to celebrate. juneteenth carries an even more poignant meaning today as its recognized as a federal holiday but even without national recognition an annual pageant promoted the holiday and empower young, black women. >> the juneteenth pageant is more than a pageant. it is a program that is going to institute truth and history of where these girls have come from and knowing why all of the history matters. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. im here representing texas. >...

Then there are also more than a dozen states that are currently trying to make it impossible to teach about systemic bias or topics of race in classrooms and come up today, too, as people say we celebrate but what about the areas where people cant talk about it in schools so thats what i mean when i say this is about as much about the future as the past. yasmin? >> it really is incredible. you picked up on that so well. the fact that i was just talking about the voting restrictions put in place ...

Comfortable in my skin. i didnt have the confidence i have now. it is very important to me because this is my history. this is what my and zesters wanted me to be and im seen in their eyes as their image. >> for the first time this past year the miss juneteenth pageant became a national event. im joined by the national juneteenth saniya gay. oh my god, look at you. you look incredible. what a crown. >> thank you. >> that is so amazing. wow. wow. im shocked and surprised to see you looking so inc...

Day started on a much more somber note. a statue of george floyd unveiled not far from where i am and people invoking the name to remind people this is not just about something that happened a century ago. listen to a conversation i had with an organizer. >> im glad to get juneteenth as a national holiday and a step. this year has been that we are more than laboring. what we are taught in schools was just about the slave trade and about all the things that people went through. this start it is p...

>> im here. >> yeah. so is at all kind of a conversation going on? i remember being on the streets in brooklyn with the conviction of derek chauvin and i worry now that folks think that now that the progress has been made on this one case that they will stop trying to change things. right? stop trying to move forward. to chip away at systemic racism, to work hard at it. is there at a conversation happening similar out there right now about sort of recognizing juneteenth and thinking that folks w...