Alabama House bill would make Juneteenth a state holiday — but there’s a catch

Ralph Chapoco
·3 min read
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Six figures of enslaved people are rendered in brass. Three are men; two are women; one is a child. The men wear shirts and overalls; the women dresses and headscarves; the child a dress. Three men and a women are visibly chained to each other. In the foreground, a bearded white man wearing a fedora and holding a gun and a whip looks at the enslaved individuals.
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A sculpture of enslaved men, women and children seen in Alabama Bicentennial Park in Montgomery, Alabama on January 24, 2023. Alabama was a slave state from 1819 to 1865, and Montgomery was a major slave trading destination. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

An Alabama House bill would allow state employees to commemorate Juneteenth. With one condition.

HB 367, sponsored by Chris Sells, R-Greenville, would add the June 19 holiday, which celebrates the end of slavery, to the current list of 13 days Alabama officially celebrates and offers the day off for state employees.

But Juneteenth would not be an additional day off. Instead, state employees would be able to take that day off or Jefferson Davis’ Birthday, a state holiday marked on the first Monday in June.

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“I wanted to do it in a way without giving another paid holiday,” Sells said in an interview on Monday. “State employees, I think, already get 13 paid holidays, and I think that is plenty. I didn’t want to go another 14th day.”

Davis’ birthday is one of three state holidays Alabama has honoring the Confederacy, a white supremacist government formed to defend slavery. Davis, a Mississippi resident, was a slaveholder and a racist who called Black Americans “fitted expressly for servitude.”

The state marks Confederate Memorial Day on the fourth Monday of April. The state marks Robert E. Lee’s Birthday on the third Monday in January, the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Three men sitting at a table and listening.
Three men sitting at a table and listening.

From left, Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile; Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville and Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro listen during a special session on redistricting on Friday, July 21, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)

“I just did this because there are several bills floating around in my committee to make Juneteenth a permanent holiday, and I wanted to do it in a way without giving another paid holiday,” Sells said in an interview Monday.

Alabama Democrats have pushed in recent years to make Juneteenth an official holiday. During the 2023 session, Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, proposed a measure that added Juneteenth without affecting the other official holidays. Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, introduced a bill to replace Davis’ birthday with Juneteenth as an official holiday.

“I obviously don’t think we should celebrate Jefferson Davis,” England said in an interview Monday. “I don’t think we should give people the option to celebrate Jefferson Davis.”

England, who said he is considering whether to support Sell’s bill, also cited Davis’ tenuous connection to Alabama. Outside the three months the Confederate government operated in Montgomery, Davis never lived in the state.

“I just don’t understand why Alabama continues to let the dead bury the living, and won’t make any progress beyond celebrating individuals that don’t deserve any real sort of positive recognition,” he said.

Rep. Rick Rehm, R-Dothan, the lone cosponsor for the bill, said his district celebrates that holiday.

“It is a federal holiday,” he said in an interview Monday. “There is no reason that the state should not have a holiday that aligns with a federal holiday.”

Should the bill pass and be signed by the governor, Alabama would be one of 26 other states in the country recognizing Juneteenth as an official state holiday through legislation, according to the Pew Research Center.

The governors of Alabama and West Virginia have recognized the holiday, but no legislation makes it official. In California, state employees may observe the holiday in lieu of a personal holiday while in North Carolina, some state workers may elect to take it as a floating holiday.

President Joe Biden signed legislation in 2021 declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Sells’ bill is scheduled to be in an Alabama House committee on Wednesday afternoon.

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The post Alabama House bill would make Juneteenth a state holiday — but there’s a catch appeared first on Alabama Reflector.