Juneteenth: City Offices & Library Closed

In observance of Juneteenth, City Hall (10722 SE Main St.), the Johnson Creek Building (6101 SE Johnson Creek Blvd.) and Ledding Library (10660 SE 21^st Ave.), are closed. 

About Juneteenth: Juneteenth, also known as Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day and Freedom Day, is the oldest nationally-celebrated holiday, honoring the freedom of enslaved people in the United States. Juneteenth commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced that all enslaved people had been freed.  The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed over two years earlier.   

Opal Lee is an American retired teacher, counselor and activist in the movement to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday.  She is often described as the “grandmother of Juneteenth.”  At the age of 89, Opal Lee pledged to walk the 1,400 miles from her home in Texas to Washington D.C. to draw attention to this idea.  On June 17, 2021 President Joe Biden Signed Senate Bill S. 475, making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

On June 16, 2020, Milwaukie City Council signed a “Proclamation for the Commemoration of Juneteenth as an Annual Celebration of Black Economic Liberation.”