Jennifer Lopez Goes Into Action To Make Juneteenth A National Holiday

Jennifer Lopez, regarded as the most influential Latin entertainer in the United States, made a statement through her personal Instagram page and took action to make Juneteenth a national holiday by urging her followers to sign a related petition.

J.Lo, who has a landmark star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, wrote:

“Let’s take action: there is a link in my bio to sign a petition created by Opal Lee, a 93-year-old woman from Texas, to make Juneteenth a national holiday.”

Then, ‘If You Had My Love’ singer mentioned the aim of this action:

“If the petition reaches its goal of 500K signatures, they will work to have legislation update US code 36, which is the list of official US observances, to add Juneteenth.”

As might be remembered, Lopez had also shown her support to ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement by attending the protest.

Following the post, her followers left certain comments to appreciate her, and they promised to sign:

“It is a Holiday which brings up awareness and culture change which is always a good thing. The holiday represents freedom for all slaves in the state of Texas in 1865. It is for all of us to embrace and those with open minds will” wrote, Sujita Grawal.

“I stand for anything and everything you stand for! 😍❤” added, Michelle E. Bearden.

“Thank you for using your platform to promote such important things❤” commented, Niklas Yanger.

To view the mentioned Instagram post, see below.

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📢 Let’s take action: there is a link in my bio to sign a petition created by Opal Lee, a 93 year old woman from Texas, to make Juneteenth a national holiday. If the petition reaches its goal of 500K signatures, they will work to have legislation update US code 36, which is the list of official US observances, to add Juneteenth. — From Juneteenth.com: Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All of which, or none of these versions could be true. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln's authority over the rebellious states was in question. Whatever the reasons, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Jun 19, 2020 at 10:08am PDT