Biden to sign Juneteenth bill, creating holiday marking U.S. slavery''s end

(MENAFN - Jordan News Agency) Amman, June 17 (Petra)-- U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will sign a bill into law on Thursday afternoon to make June 19 a federal holiday commemorating the end of the legal enslavement of Black Americans.The bill, which was passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday after a unanimous vote in the Senate, marks the day in 1865 when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Texas that they had been made free two years earlier by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.//Petra// 17/06/2021 23:13:22MENAFN17062021000117011021ID1102299799