It’s Friday.
For Friday, June 18, 2021, President Biden will have received his daily brief. This afternoon he will deliver remarks on Biden’s admin’s response to the conroavirus and the coronavirus vaccination program. After his remarks he’ll depart D.C., headed for his home in Delaware.
President Biden has not tweeted for Friday so far.
When Thursday’s Open Thread was posted President Biden had 2 tweets and no retweets. He added a boat load (9), giving him a Thursday Tweeting Total of 11 tweets and 0 retweets.
His 3rd and 4th tweets for Thursday were about the economy.
As mentioned in yesterday’s already linked afternoon Open Thread.
We move on to the rest of his tweets which are all about Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday.
Up first is the live stream.
The video stream is 30 minutes and 57 seconds long. President Biden begins speaking at the 5 minute and 53 second mark. The transcript of his remarks can be found here. He concludes his remarks at the 17 minute and 45 second mark. The video continues with the signing of the bill that makes Juneteenth a federal holiday.
The White House published the following Proclamation:
On June 19, 1865 — nearly nine decades after our Nation’s founding, and more than 2 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation — enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally received word that they were free from bondage. As those who were formerly enslaved were recognized for the first time as citizens, Black Americans came to commemorate Juneteenth with celebrations across the country, building new lives and a new tradition that we honor today. In its celebration of freedom, Juneteenth is a day that should be recognized by all Americans. And that is why I am proud to have consecrated Juneteenth as our newest national holiday.
Juneteenth is a day of profound weight and power.
A day in which we remember the moral stain and terrible toll of slavery on our country –- what I’ve long called America’s original sin. A long legacy of systemic racism, inequality, and inhumanity.
But it is a day that also reminds us of our incredible capacity to heal, hope, and emerge from our darkest moments with purpose and resolve.
As I said on the 100th Anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, great nations don’t ignore the most painful chapters of their past. Great nations confront them. We come to terms with them.
On Juneteenth, we recommit ourselves to the work of equity, equality, and justice. And, we celebrate the centuries of struggle, courage, and hope that have brought us to this time of progress and possibility. That work has been led throughout our history by abolitionists and educators, civil rights advocates and lawyers, courageous activists and trade unionists, public officials, and everyday Americans who have helped make real the ideals of our founding documents for all.
There is still more work to do. As we emerge from the long, dark winter of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, racial equity remains at the heart of our efforts to vaccinate the Nation and beat the virus. We must recognize that Black Americans, among other people of color, have shouldered a disproportionate burden of loss — while also carrying us through disproportionately as essential workers and health care providers on the front lines of the crisis.
Psalm 30 proclaims that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Juneteenth marks both the long, hard night of slavery and discrimination, and the promise of a brighter morning to come. My Administration is committed to building an economy — and a Nation — that brings everyone along, and finally delivers our Nation’s founding promise to Black Americans. Together, we will lay the roots of real and lasting justice, so that we can become the extraordinary country that was promised to all Americans.
Juneteenth not only commemorates the past. It calls us to action today.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 19, 2021, as Juneteenth Day of Observance. I call upon the people of the United States to acknowledge and celebrate the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of Black Americans, and commit together to eradicate systemic racism that still undermines our founding ideals and collective prosperity.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
White House.gov. 06/17/2021.
He moves on to mark the 6th anniversary of the deaths of 9 people at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
President Biden (15:43): Today also marks the sixth anniversary of the tragic deaths of — at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina. A killer motivated by hate, intending to start a race war in South Carolina. He joined his victims in a Bible study class, then he took their lives in the house of worship. It’s a reminder that our work to root out hate never ends — because hate only hides, it never fully goes away. It hides. And when you breathe oxygen under that rock, it comes out.
President Biden (14:43): We can’t rest until the promise of equality is fulfilled for every one of us in every corner of this nation. That, to me, is the meaning of Juneteenth. That’s what it’s about.
The signing starts at the 18 minute and 37 second mark. The gap between when he concludes speaking and the signing starts, is everyone getting up on stage.
President Biden (7:37): You know, today, we consecrate Juneteenth for what it ought to be, what it must be: a national holiday. As the Vice President noted, a holiday that will join the others of our national celebrations: our independence, our laborers who built this nation, our servicemen and women who served and died in its defense. And the first new national holiday since the creation of Martin Luther King Holiday nearly four decades ago.
President Biden (8:37): And we’re blessed — we’re blessed to mark the day in the presence of Ms. Opal Lee. As my mother would say, “God love her.” I had the honor of meeting her in Nevada more than a year ago. She told me she loved me, and I believed it. I wanted to believe it. Ms. Opal, you’re incredible. A daughter of Texas. Grandmother of the movement to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. And Ms. Opal is — you won’t believe it — she’s 49 years old. Or 94 years old, but I — You are an incredible woman, Ms. Opal. You really are. As a child growing up in Texas, she and her family would celebrate Juneteenth. On Juneteenth, 1939, when she was 12 years old, the white — a white mob torched her family home. But such hate never stopped her any more than it stopped the vast majority of you I’m looking at from this podium. Over the course of decades, she’s made it her mission to see that this day came. It was almost a singular mission. She’s walked for miles and miles, literally and figuratively, to bring attention to Juneteenth, to make this day possible. I ask, once again, we all stand and give her a warm welcome to the White House.
President Biden’s remarks on the coronavirus response and the vaccination program are scheduled to start at 2:15 p.m. D.C., time.
This is an Open Thread.
HAPPY FRIDAY!
For those of us suffering the heat, it’s hot, 9:11 a.m. CA., time for me it’s 90 already….please stay cool, and hydrated.
