ASHLAND — Ashland County government will observe Juneteenth, the day representing the official end of slavery in the United States, as a paid holiday for the first time starting in 2022, county commissioners said Thursday.
Ashland County Commissioners unanimously approved the resolution Thursday, meaning county government offices will close June 20.
Since Juneteenth falls on a Sunday next year, the holiday will be observed Monday.
The announcement comes nearly four months after President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
The majority of states recognize Juneteenth as a holiday or a day of recognition, like Flag Day. Most of those states hold celebrations. Recognizing it as a paid holiday, however, received attention in 2020 amid the county’s reckoning over race following the death of George Floyd.
The day became a paid holiday in Ohio as soon as President Biden signed the law in June. Ohio government offices closed June 18 this year, since the holiday fell on a Saturday.
According to Ohio law, state holidays include “any day appointed and recommended by the governor of this state or the president of the United States.”
Though county commissioners said Thursday observing the holiday “won’t be a problem,” they lamented the fact that it means losing an additional day of production across county government offices — which includes the courthouse, the dog shelter, the engineer’s office, veterans services, the Department of Jobs and Family Services and others.
Bittle said the county will lose production that day, but will also have to pay employees for not working. Some employees, like those in the sheriff’s office, he said, will receive time and a half if they work on the holiday.
For the commissioner’s office, the day will cost around $1,400 for payroll of around 10 employees, said Cindy Funk, the county’s treasurer.
Calculating a number representing the entire county workforce would be “next to impossible,” she said, because many workers are part-time.
“I guess I feel for private industry, if they have to take that off,” said Commissioner Jim Justice. “Because they lose big money on production everyday that they’re not there. We’ll deal with it like everybody else.”
Observing federal holidays with paid time off is not mandatory for businesses in the U.S. Many national corporations do, though — including Best Buy, Target, Nike and Stanley Black & Decker.
Juneteenth is the first federal holiday added since 1983, the year Martin Luther King Day was established.
Other paid holidays include New Year’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans’ Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Juneteenth: a brief history
The Juneteenth celebration started with freed slaves in Galveston, Texas. Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the South in 1863, but could not be enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865.
The word blends June and nineteenth. That’s the day in 1865 when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger read the Emancipation Proclamation to people in Galveston, Texas. The Civil War had ended two months earlier when Robert E. Lee surrendered. Granger’s announcement led to a celebration among Black people that continued on its anniversary in Texas since.
John Moser, chair of Ashland University’s history department, said many Americans had never heard of Juneteenth until the last couple of years.
“But it has been celebrated in Texas since 1866, and by the 1920s and 1930s many parts of the South celebrated it as well,” he said.
The general’s announcement didn’t necessarily “end slavery,” though. He said Delaware and Kentucky still practiced slavery because the states had not seceded from the Union until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865.
“Also, the Choctaw Indians, who had aligned themselves with the Confederacy, also held slaves, and continued to do so until 1866,” Moser said.
Whether observing Juneteenth as a national holiday will contribute to a better collective understanding of slavery and race remains to be seen.
“I do think that celebration of Juneteenth is a positive development–after all, what’s more worthy of celebration than the end of slavery, which was such a stain on the national conscience, and such a violation of the principles of the Declaration of Independence? But do we know more about the end of World War I because Veteran’s Day is on November 11 (when the armistice was signed ending World War I), or more about labor because we celebrate Labor Day in September?” Moser said.
He said Americans typically view holidays as an extra day off and as an excuse to have a picnic or a party.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, personally,” he said.
