U.S. President Donald Trump has bemoaned the number of public holidays in the country, ignoring Juneteenth; a celebration of the emancipation of African-Americans from their slave masters in 1865.
The hustle and bustle of the White House was unaffected by the Thursday holiday given that staff manned their duty posts as usual even as the rest of America, mostly government workers, observed the Juneteenth public holiday proclaimed by former President Joe Biden in 2021.
Mr Trump perhaps expressed disdain for Juneteenth when he claimed on Truth Social that there were too many holidays that could harm the U.S. economy.
“Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our country $Billions of dollars to keep all of these businesses closed,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social early Friday.
Private companies often do not observe these breaks as retailers such as Walmart open for shoppers.
“It must change if we are going to, Make America Great Again!,”Mr Trump stated.
Although he didn’t single out Juneteenth out of the 11 federal public holidays in the U.S., the timing of the post suggested that Mr Trump was not pleased by the idea of Americans downing tools to commemorate the end of slavery; an event he celebrated during his first term—- before it was even declared a public holiday.
The White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavit, confirmed that Juneteenth was a federal holiday but that White House employees were at work on Thursday to discuss national security matters, including potential military action against Iran.
Last week, Mr Trump issued statements commemorating Father’s Day, National Flag Week and Flag Day —- events not registered in the nation’s annual holiday calendar but his seeming shun of Juneteeth attracted fresh criticisms from his predecessor.
Former President Biden took a jab at Mr Trump on Thursday during the Juneteenth celebration at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston.
“Black history is American history,” Mr Biden told a crowd who hailed him with applause.
“Some say to you and to me that this doesn’t deserve to be a federal holiday. They don’t want to remember what we all remember — the moral stain, the moral stain of slavery.”
Juneteenth marks —June 19, 1865— the day late General Gordon Granger announced the freedom of African-American slaves and end of the civil war; two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
