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Youth and College Director Tylik McMillan joined President Biden and Vice-President Harris

Youth and College Director Tylik McMillan joined President Biden and Vice-President Harris at the White House today to sign the Juneteenth bill into law establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

Pictured with Opal Lee of Fort Worth. The 94-year-old Lee began a campaign in 2016 to have the holiday recognized at the national level. Lee walked 1,400 miles from Fort Worth to Washington to bring awareness to the celebration and initiated an online petition in hopes of gaining support from Congress to officially name Juneteenth a national holiday.

Now, five years after she launched her campaign and decades since she’s been an advocate for the celebration, Juneteenth has become the first federal holiday signed into law since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.