Twitter and Square on Tuesday designated Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in America, as a company holiday — the latest conciliatory overtures by major corporations since the widespread protests over police brutality and the death of George Floyd. The initiative was announced on social media by Jack Dorsey, the chief executive and a founder of Twitter and Square, a mobile payment company. Businesses large and small, from the National Football League to independent shops, have re-examined their policies and social responsibility to combat systemic racism in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The holiday got its name by combining the words June and nineteenth. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers landing in Galveston, Texas, told the slaves there that they were free and that the Civil War had ended — more than two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Source: New York Times June 10, 2020 01:07 UTC