Local diversity leaders reflect on impact of Juneteenth, bill to make it a national holiday
WEWS: Robert Solomon, vice president for the Office of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equal Opportunity, provided insight into the significance of making Juneteenth a national holiday, commemorating the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free—more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. “It’s profound from the standpoint of how slavery has been treated historically in our nation. I think that that has been downplayed…We can learn from those things. We can grow together and we can strengthen our democracy by paying attention to what our history shows.”