Texas Rangers won’t make Juneteenth a paid holiday. Here’s what they’re doing instead.
The Texas Rangers will recognize the Juneteenth holiday Friday by devoting time during their weekly Zoom call with employees to educate them and discuss the importance of the date.
The club will also host a Zoom call Friday night with participants at the Rangers MLB Youth Academy and Rangers outfielder Willie Calhoun and left-hander Taylor Hearn, both of whom are black and will share their experiences.
However, the Rangers are not treating it as a paid holiday as the Dallas Cowboys, Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks are.
“The Rangers’ plan at the present time is to utilize our weekly employee Zoom call on Friday to address and educate our group on the history and importance of the celebration of Juneteenth,” a club spokesman said. “We have not discussed giving employees a paid day off at this time.”
Juneteenth is receiving more attention this year in the wake of the police-involved deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubrey and Rayshard Brooks, and with President Trump originally scheduling a rally for Friday in Tulsa, Okla., sight of the Tulsa Race Massacre in June 1921.
It will be held Saturday instead.
Juneteenth celebrates a declaration by Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free.
President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. The news and, thus enforcement, was slow to reach Texas because it was the most remote of the slave states and had a low presence of Union troops.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 2:43 PM.
