Juneteenth 2024 Today: What’s Open?

PROVIDENCE — In 2021, the Congress made Juneteenth a federal holiday celebrating the official end of slavery in the United States, observed today as a state holiday for  the first time.

Forty-seven states and the District of Columbia have established it as a state holiday or observe the holiday, including Rhode Island, which established an official observance, but not a state holiday for Juneteenth, in 2012. Rhode Island officially observes the holiday this  year.

In Warwick, the  City Council approved making the date a paid  union holiday for the  city, effective this year.

What is Juneteenth?

Juneteenth commemorates the arrival of the news of emancipation and the freedom of enslaved people in all former Confederate states following the conclusion of the Civil War.  The holiday is called “Juneteenth” because it marks June 19, 1865 — the day Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to serve notice of the Emancipation Proclamation and announce the freedom of America’s last remaining enslaved people.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, had legally freed slaves in Texas on Jan. 1, 1863, almost 2½ years before. At that time, the document only freed enslaved people in Confederate-controlled areas. Some slave masters withheld the information from their slaves, holding them as slaves through one more harvest season.

Juneteenth in Rhode Island: What’s Open?

• Non-essential federal government departments are closed, including the Post Office, as are many corporations.

• Public transit company RIPTA is following holiday scheduled routes today. Check the RIPTA website for schedules.