Gov. Kay Ivey makes Juneteenth Alabama state holiday for 2024

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey delivers the State of the State address on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)

State employees will be given Juneteenth as a holiday, according to a memo that Gov. Kay Ivey sent to state department leaders on Monday

The memo identifies the state holidays for the remaining part of the year, including Juneteenth on June 19, a holiday marking the end of American slavery.

“All state offices will be closed on the above dates, except those in areas where it is essential to maintain personnel. If it is necessary for any employee to work on any of these holidays, they should be allowed time off as soon thereafter as possible,” Ivey stated in the memo that she wrote.

Other holidays include not only Thanksgiving Day, but also the Friday after Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Gina Maiola, communications director for Ivey, said Monday the memo did not list all the state holidays but that the governor added a couple of days, Juneteenth and the day after Thanksgiving.

President Joe Biden in 2021 signed a law making Juneteenth a federal holiday. But efforts to declare Juneteenth a state holiday in Alabama – where 435,000 men, women and children were held in slavery prior to the Civil War – has been difficult.

The Alabama House of Representatives in April approved HB 4 , sponsored by Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, a measure that was amended to resemble HB 367 , sponsored by Rep. Chris Sells, R-Greenville,

The House-passed bill would have required state employees to take either Juneteenth off or Jefferson Davis’ Birthday on June 3, a state holiday honoring the former Confederate president and slaveholder.

The choice was not in the original version of Givan’s bill. Sells said in an interview that employees already had 13 holidays and that he did not want to add another day, so his legislation would give state employees the option to choose which of those holidays they wanted off.

The bill did not come to a vote in the Senate.

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