Four years ago this week, the US government created its first new federal holiday in nearly four decades. Juneteenth National Independence Day, commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans, was introduced and passed in the Senate on June 15, 2021, passed in the House on June 16, and was signed into law by President Biden on June 17.
Given the pace of that action, it would seem easy enough to reverse. But despite sweeping efforts by the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress to curtail the teaching and public recognition of Black history, there has been no movement to repeal Juneteenth. The holiday has been conspicuously absent from the otherwise aggressive campaign to restrict how race and the legacy of slavery are acknowledged in government and public life.
“[Juneteeth] is now, in a very brief period of time, in four years, deeply engrained in the culture of our country,” said Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, a lead sponsor of the law, in an interview with the Globe. “It would be politically impossible to reverse it. Black history is American history and Juneteenth is a not just a day, it is now a year-long celebration that is impossible politically for Trump or anyone of the MAGA base to build a movement to repeal that holiday.”
There’s another straightforward explanation: it’s too popular. Even among Republicans.
In the Senate, every Republican signed off to make it law. In the House, only 14 GOP members voted no. Many of those who supported the law, including Texas Republicans, whose state first recognized Juneteenth as a holiday in 1980, remain in office. For a Congress now deeply polarized on race and education policy, the 2021 vote stands out as a moment of unusual consensus.
That consensus built on political momentum from the year before. In the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer and the widespread protests that followed, then-President Trump was asked whether he supported making Juneteenth a federal holiday. While he did not propose legislation, he said he would “absolutely consider it” if a bill came to his desk and added that it “should be celebrated.” The issue gained traction across the political spectrum, even as deeper policy debates around policing, systemic racism, and racial equity programs remained unresolved.
The contrast with what’s happened since is striking. Trump, now returned to power, has made curtailing federal engagement with race and history one of the signature priorities of his second term. Executive orders have instructed federal agencies to review and remove materials that reference structural racism or institutional bias. They instructed the National Park Service to remove language about the Underground Railroad from their displays. One Trump executive order targeted the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., as saying American and Western culture was “inherently harmful.” In the same executive order, they disagreed with the museum’s framing that race is a “social construct” by stating that, instead, it was a “biological reality.” In the military, Pentagon websites that once profiled the contributions of Black service members have been quietly taken down. Public-facing materials celebrating the history of Black soldiers, LGBTQ+ veterans, and women in combat have disappeared. Top apolitical officials with diverse gender and racial backgrounds have been fired.
And beyond the federal government, conservative leaders and lawmakers have sought to limit how race and slavery are taught in classrooms — including bans on the 1619 Project and restrictions on AP African American Studies.
And yet, Juneteenth has gone untouched.
It may be that trying to undo a national holiday, particularly one as publicly embraced as Juneteenth, would be a harder sell than removing curriculum or rewriting a web page. Several red states have followed the federal government’s lead and made Juneteenth a state holiday, even as they advance laws that restrict how Black history can be taught in public schools and universities. In South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia, where laws have targeted classroom content about racism and slavery as part of anti-Critical Race Theory measures, June 19 remains an official holiday. In Texas, state offices will close Thursday, just as they have since 1980.
The politics are also more delicate. While some on the right criticized the holiday, at the time saying it would compete with July 4 or arguing it was expensive to give another paid holiday without removing an existing one, those voices were outliers. No major Republican figure has called for its repeal, even as they challenge the public role of Black historical narratives elsewhere.
Still, the disconnect between what Juneteenth represents — the delayed arrival of freedom to enslaved people in Texas more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation — and the current rollback of how race and slavery are discussed in public institutions is hard to miss. In Washington, federal employees will get the day off. But many of the initiatives once tasked with commemorating or educating about racial history have already been stripped away.
In this way, Juneteenth stands apart: a symbolic acknowledgment that remains firmly in place, even as the broader teaching and celebration of Black history is being curtailed. Whether that separation is sustainable or whether the holiday eventually draws new scrutiny remains to be seen.
But Markey has a prediction: “Juneteenth is going to be celebrated for the rest of our nation’s history.”
James Pindell is a Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.