Kenney Signs Executive Order Renaming Columbus Day and Making Juneteenth City Holiday

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has signed an executive order that adds a new holiday to the city calendar and changes the name of another. {snip}

The executive order makes June 19, or Juneteenth, a city holiday until the end of the Kenney administration, in commemoration of the final emancipation of remaining slaves held in the United States until 1865.

Deputy Mayor Cynthia Figueroa, who co-chairs the Reform, Transformation and Reconciliation Committee created in the aftermath of last summer’s protests, said the administration hopes to make the holiday permanent as part of bargaining with city worker unions this year.

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The other provision is changing the name of the holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October to Indigenous People’s Day, instead of Columbus Day.

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