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Twitter CEO declares Juneteenth a permanent company holiday

In April, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square announced a donation of $1m to help black communities fight COVID-19. He has declared Juneteenth will permanently be an annual company holiday in the United States, calling it “a day for celebration, education, and connection.”

“Countries and regions around the world have their own days to celebrate emancipation, we will do the work to make those dates company holidays everywhere we are present,” Dorsey said.

Celebrated on June 19, Juneteenth is the oldest national celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday dates back to 1865 when Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, landed in Galveston, Texas, with news that slavery in the United States was over. It came two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which became official on January 1, 1863.