Former President Joe Biden celebrated Juneteenth on Thursday at a historic Black church in Texas, calling for Americans to come together to push the country forward.
“I don’t come here today to only commemorate the past. I come here because we know the good Lord isn’t done with us yet,” Biden said, adding, “We have work to do. We need to keep pushing America forward.”
“We’re the United States of America,” Biden said. “There’s nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.”
Biden’s remarks at the historic Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, come nearly four years after he made Juneteenth a national holiday — the first federal holiday established since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Biden said he was “very proud” to sign the bipartisan legislation.
“It made me proud. Proud that we were united,” Biden said. “Proud, despite all our differences, we can still come together for things that matter most.”
Juneteenth is a celebration of the end of slavery, commemorating the day Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston and told a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended and they were free — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
“Juneteenth is a day of liberation, a day of remembrance and a day of celebration,” Biden said. “Juneteenth represents both the long and hard night of slavery and subjugation and the promise of joyful morning to come.”
“Our federal holidays say … who we are as Americans,” Biden later added. “What we celebrate says what we value.”
President Donald Trump — who has not signed a proclamation this year observing Juneteenth — took to social media on Thursday to criticize the number of non-working holidays in the United States.
“Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, adding, “It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump’s post comes as he continues to make the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs a centerpiece of his second administration, ordering a ban on DEI programs in federal agencies on his first day in office.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Biden reflected on the nation’s history and the current political climate.
“We need to be honest about our history,” Biden said on Thursday, pointing to “efforts to erase history from our textbooks and our classrooms.”
Biden’s administration — which came in the aftermath of widespread protests against racial injustice following George Floyd’s killing in 2020 — embraced diversity and DEI efforts. Biden ran alongside the first Black, South Asian and woman vice president in 2020, and he had the most racially diverse presidential Cabinet in US history. Biden also nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the first Black woman Supreme Court justice.
Biden also signed legislation to rename nine military bases that were named after Confederate leaders. The Trump administration has since moved to restore the names of each of the bases.
Biden’s Thursday remarks come two months after his office announced that the former president, 82, has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form” of prostate cancer that spread to his bones.
Late last month, the former president struck an optimistic tone when he spoke publicly for the first time about his cancer diagnosis, telling reporters: “We’re going to be able to beat this.”
He similarly ended on an energized chord Thursday, telling the churchgoers in Galveston, “Let’s get the hell to work and get more done.”
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