President Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He once claimed to have made it "famous." But on this year's Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent about a day important to Black Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country whose government he leads again. There were no words about the day from his lips, on paper, or through his social media site, the AP reports. Asked whether Trump would commemorate Juneteenth in any way, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: "I'm not tracking his signature on a proclamation today. I know this is a federal holiday. I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We're working 24/7 right now."
Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the US by commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas. Their freedom came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln liberated slaves in the Confederacy by signing the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War. Trump's quiet on the issue also deviated from White House guidance that Trump planned to sign a Juneteenth proclamation. Leavitt didn't explain the change. Trump held no public events Thursday, but he shared statements about Iran, TikTok, and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on social media, per the AP. He had more to say about Juneteenth in his first term.
In 2017, Trump invoked the "soulful festivities and emotional rejoicing" in Galveston when a major general delivered the news. He told the Galveston story in each of the next three years. "Together, we honor the unbreakable spirit and countless contributions of generations of African Americans to the story of American greatness," he added in his 2018 statement. In 2020, after suspending his campaign rallies because of the pandemic, Trump chose Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the place to resume his public gatherings and scheduled a rally for June 19. But the decision met with such criticism that Trump postponed the event by a day. Later in 2020, Trump promised to establish the federal holiday. Generations of Black Americans celebrated Juneteenth long before it became a federal holiday in 2021 with the stroke of President Biden's pen.
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