Juneteenth will be observed on Thursday locally and throughout the rest of the nation as some organizations will be closed for the day.
The holiday commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S., marking the day Union troops arrived in Galveston to announce to enslaved Black people that they were free two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth, long celebrated by Black communities, has been a state holiday in Texas for roughly four decades — and in 2021, former President Joe Biden made it a federal holiday.
Locals will commemorate the holiday with several events. In Dallas, the only known original copy of General Order No. 3 — the 1865 decree that alerted enslaved people in Galveston — will be on display starting on Thursday at the Hall of State in Fair Park.
Amid the events, some organizations will be closing for the day. Here is a list of some of the those in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, though they can vary from place to place:
- U.S. Postal Service offices are closed
- Banks, including Chase, Bank of America and others are closed
- Some federal offices, including courts will not open
- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is closed
- Some local offices, including Dallas County
- UPS, FedEx offices are open