Government offices and more closed Monday for Juneteenth

Just a reminder that all county, state and federal offices will be closed on Monday, June 19 for Juneteenth.

This will be the third Juneteenth officially recognized as a federal holiday in the United States.

Juneteenth became a holiday for state of California employees in September of last year, so this is the first year that employees will have the day off.  Assembly Bill 1655 allows state employees to take paid time off on June 19th or the nearest Friday or Monday, if it falls on a weekend.

It will also be a holiday for Plumas County workers as it became part of most employees’ contracts through negotiations, and then the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in 2022 to extend the holiday to all employees who didn’t have the holiday, including department heads and public works employees.

All federal government offices, federal courts, banks, post offices, schools, and the U.S. financial markets will be closed, and Plumas County offices will be closed as well.

Juneteenth commemorate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Although President Abraham Lincoln’s January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation officially abolished slavery, it would be over two years before the Civil War ended in April 1865, and even longer before the news spread to all parts of the country. Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, the day that U.S. Brigadier General Gordon Granger and his troops landed at Galveston, Texas, bringing the news that the Civil War had ended and that enslaved African Americans were now free.