The US Congress has overwhelmingly passed a bill to add a federal holiday to the calendar marking Juneteenth – the end of slavery in the nation.
The House of Representatives backed the legislation by 415-14, a day after it was unanimously approved by the Senate.
It is the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr Day was established in 1983.
Juneteenth marks the day on 19 June 1865 when enslaved black people in Texas learned they had been freed.
The measure now heads to the White House to be enacted into law.
President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats sponsored the measure and it cruised through Congress with unexpected speed in a rare show of bipartisanship.
Texas officially declared Juneteenth a state holiday in 1980 and since then the holiday has been officially recognized in most U.S. states.
Juneteenth would be the eleventh federally recognized holiday, joining a list that includes Christmas and New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving and Independence Day and honoring presidents and slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
