Wong Fleming Celebrate Juneteenth

In the United States, June 19th is the holiday celebrating Juneteenth. Juneteenth is known as Freedom Day or Liberation Day. June 19, 1865, is the day to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. The holiday was first celebrated in Texas. Federal soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the enslaved were now free and the war was over. In the aftermath of the Civil War, slaves were declared free under the terms of the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. Lincoln established that all enslaved people in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

In 1980 Texas was the first to make Juneteenth an official state holiday. With Biden’s signature, on June 17, 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday. Juneteenth is the first holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which was established in 1983. Throughout the United States, Juneteenth is celebrated by holding local community events, parades, parties, and festivities.

Wong Fleming is committed to observing Juneteenth as a day of celebration and reflection and has made Juneteenth a firm-wide holiday. Wong Fleming has as one of its fundamental values the promotion of diversity because we believe that persons of differing backgrounds and cultures provide us all with a richness of understanding and respect from distinct perspectives. We are fully committed to sustained engagement in helping end racial and economic inequity in our city, community, and industry.