County government offices, including those in Henry County and Obion County, are closed for observation of the Juneteenth holiday Wednesday, June 19.
The United State Postal Service also is suspending mail delivery Wednesday.
In June 2021, the Senate voted by unanimous consent to make Juneteenth the 11th annual national holiday on the federal calendar, and the House of Representatives passed a similar measure by a vote of 415-14. President Joe Biden signed it into law hours later.
Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day, is a federal holiday in the United States. It is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. The holiday’s name is a portmanteau of the words “June” and “nineteenth”, as it was on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War