Bellingham city employees get this new paid holiday in 2022
Bellingham employees will have Juneteenth — the day marking when the last Black American slaves learned they were free — as a paid holiday in 2022, the City Council decided unanimously Monday, Dec. 6.
Monday was 156 years to the date after slavery officially ended in the U.S. with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1865.
“Establishing Juneteenth as an official city holiday will bring awareness and consciousness to a crucial day in history,” City Council President Hannah Stone said as she introduced the measure in a committee hearing.
”It also designates a day, not just to reflect on the harms of the past, but to actively work toward dismantling discriminatory systems and creating an anti-racist future in our city and country,” Stone said.
Mayor Seth Fleetwood said he sought approval of the measure in time to include it in the 2022 budget, and to allow the city to plan an observance.
“This is a symbolic step, but I think it can be more than symbolic depending on how we recognize the day,” Councilman Michael Lilliquist said.
“I think one of the things we’ve learned is that being passively against racism maybe isn’t enough, but being positively anti-racist is better,” he said.
Bellingham City Council will have its first two Black members in January, with the recent election of Skip Williams and Kristina Michele Martens to replace two retiring council members.
In addition, the city is working with Whatcom County to develop a Racial Equity Commission.
Juneteenth is named for the time it took Union soldiers to tell slaves in Confederate states that they were free after the Civil War ended in 1865.
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in Confederate states by executive order on Sept. 22, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War.
By the time the war ended on May 9, 1865, Union troops had already begun freeing slaves throughout the South.
But it took until June 19, 1865, for the last slaves in Texas to learn of their freedom.
Slavery was illegal in all U.S. states, including border states that didn’t secede from the Union, after the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Celebrations began a year later in the Lone Star State, and the holiday is widely known and celebrated there.
Bellingham Unity Committee has been hosting Juneteenth celebrations locally since 2018, including one attended by several hundred people earlier this year.
President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a national holiday this year.
Gov. Jay Inslee made Juneteenth a paid state holiday starting in 2022, The Associated Press reported. In 2007, the Legislature designated Juneteenth as a day of remembrance.
Cost to the city for making Juneteenth a paid holiday is $130,000 annually, according to the measure.
City employees will have 12 paid holidays in 2022, including: New Year’s Day; Martin Luther King Day; Presidents Day; Memorial Day; Juneteenth; Independence Day; Labor Day; Veterans Day; Thanksgiving and the day after; and Christmas and either the day before or the day after.
If a holiday falls on a weekend, the normal workday closest to the holiday will be the observed holiday.
