The Maui News
A bill designating Juneteenth as an official state holiday in Hawaii is expected to be signed into law by Gov. David Ige in the coming weeks, according to a news release from the state Legislature on Thursday.
Senate Bill 939 passed the full Senate and House vote on Tuesday. If signed into law, it would make Hawaii the 49th state to officially celebrate Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865 the end of African American enslavement in the U.S. South Dakota is the only other state that has not officially recognized the holiday, the news release said.
Motivated by the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, Hawaii’s first-ever African American Miss Hawaii USA, Samantha Neyland, launched Hawaii for Juneteenth, a coalition of advocates that successfully lobbied the Legislature to introduce and pass the bill.