Rep. Charlie Stallworth said: “I wonder how would I feel if midnight came and I didn’t get the word that I could go. That I had no knowledge that I could be free. And that does not even compare to those who were in slavery that did not get the word that freedom happened.”
President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday last summer. At least nine states officially recognize the holiday.
Though the bill passed with overwhelming support, intense debate about racial inequality and U.S. racial history took over the floor.
Rep. Kimberly Fiorello voted in favor of the bill, but stated an unfounded claim that the Three-Fifths Compromise, an 18th century policy that counted every enslaved Black American as three-fifths of a person, was a step toward the end of slavery.
However, many legislators corrected the record.
“Black people, men, women and children, were not seen as whole individuals, whole human beings, but three-fifths for the purpose of taxation and representation. That is what the Three-Fifths Compromise was rooted and grounded in,” Porter said.
Article Appeared @https://abcnews.go.com/US/bill-make-juneteenth-holiday-moves-governors-desk/story?id=84516976