City Council Plans to Make Juneteenth a City Holiday

Members of the Monrovia City Council have requested staff to prepare a report to recognize Juneteenth (June 19, today) as an official city holiday.

Juneteenth (a combination word of "June" and "nineteen") commemorates the end of slavery in the United States

Though President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, slaves were still held captive in Texas until the end of the war. Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of the Civil War and the end of slavery, in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.

- Brad Haugaard