The NFL announced that it will recognize Juneteenth as a company holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the effective end of slavery in the United States. While the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on January 1, 1863, it wasn’t enforced in every state until June 19, 1865, when Union troops, under the command of Major General Gordon Granger, ordered Texas to grant all slaves their freedom.
Goodell said that June 19 does more than just recognize the end of slavery, it “symbolizes freedom,” which is something we are still fighting for today.
“The power of this historical feat in our country’s blemished history is felt each year, but there is no question that the magnitude of this event weighs even more heavily today in the current climate,” Goodell said in his statement Friday. “Juneteenth not only marks the end of slavery in the United States, but it also symbolizes freedom — a freedom that was delayed, and brutally resisted; and though decades of progress followed, a freedom for which we must continue to fight.”