Why doesn’t the liberal city of Sacramento recognize Juneteenth? | Opinion
Every community has a Juneteenth story about Black people being freed from oppression, but in the city of Sacramento, Juneteenth is in a kind of limbo. While Juneteenth is an official holiday in the county of Sacramento, the city of Sacramento has not recognized it as a holiday.
When I asked why, I got weird answers from city officials. These answers make it sound as if people in the city of Sacramento see Juneteenth as part of their community.
In case you didn’t know, Juneteenth is celebrated today and is a federal holiday. It commemorates the emancipation of Black Americans in Texas on June 19. 1865. These were the last slaves freed after the Civil War. In Tennessee, where I’m from, Juneteenth is an important day.
It’s a state holiday. City offices and services will be closed in Memphis and Nashville, and many other cities in Tennessee.
In California, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego and San Francisco observe Juneteenth. It’s a state holiday here, and workers are allowed to take it as a personal day. That’s fitting given that the state officially apologized last year for “being the beneficiary of the forced enslavement of African slaves brought to California,” among many other abuses visited upon slaves and their descendants in California.
All of this makes the lack of official recognition of Juneteenth in the city of Sacramento all the more strange.
On Tuesday, the city council met for its last meeting before Juneteenth. Mayor Kevin McCarty honored Eritrean Independence Day, which was on May 24. The day honors when the tiny African country of Eritrea voted in 1991 to separate from the country of Ethiopia. The council then acknowledged World Refugee Day.
What wasn’t on the agenda was any acknowledgment of Juneteenth. At the end of the council meetings, members mentioned events that would be held to celebrate the day, but no formal presentation of the holiday.
This is only one aspect highlighting the city’s terrible failure to acknowledge Juneteenth.
City Council members Rick Jennings and Caity Maple introduced a proposal last year to make Juneteenth a paid holiday. It has been collecting dust, waiting for an official vote.
In a March article by the Bee, a spokesperson for Council Member Caity Maple, who represents the historic Black neighborhood of Oak Park, said that the holdup was due to labor negotiations with unions.
This has to be the lamest effort by a city to complete the simple act of acknowledging a holiday that is celebrated by people throughout the Sacramento community. City workers deserve to have a day off to celebrate a day of freedom.
Sacramento County is known as being more politically moderate to conservative than the city of Sacramento. Yet nothing seemed to impede the county from recognizing the importance of Juneteenth.
Why can’t the city see how easy it would be to win this? Is this part of a pattern in our city?
They just had to pay Black Lives Matter protesters $350,000 in a settlement in a misconduct case involving the Sacramento Police Department was accused of misconduct. It was also reported that they just hired a woman to lead their animal shelter that has a documented past of bullying Black workers.
Why doesn’t the city fly the Juneteenth flag outside City Hall like they do with the rainbow flag for Pride Month?
Celebrating Juneteenth won’t solve all the issues that Sacramento faces with the Black community, but it at least says that we acknowledge the freedom of Black America from generations of slavery.
Telling the right story
We’re currently in a time where the federal government is rewriting American history by removing Black icons like Jackie Robinson from websites, to renaming U.S. Navy ships after Confederate generals who owned slaves and fought to keep them in bondage.
Sacramento, tell the story of freedom with courage and pride. If someone from outside our community questions it, let us answer with resounding support for our community, who passionately celebrate and honor Juneteenth.
Or watch as its story gets an inaccurate and harmful retelling.
This story was originally published June 19, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
