(KNSI) — Two community leaders in St. Cloud will be in St. Paul when Governor Tim Walz signs a bill designating Juneteenth as an official state holiday.
Higher Works Collaborative CEO and Founder Pastor James Alberts and Director of Operations Buddy King will be at the ceremony. King spoke with KNSI News minutes after getting the call. “It’s a really big deal that Higher Works Collaborative gets to stand next to the governor on one of the biggest and most amazing opportunities to put something that’s for black people into legislation. And allow that same opportunity, like the Fourth of July.”
June 19th, 1865, is the day the U.S. Army freed the last enslaved people in Texas. King says recognizing Juneteenth as a state holiday will help teach the next generation about its meaning. “It starts to teach all cultures, all nations, the struggles and the realness of what we had to go through. So it means a lot for me and my family, for me and my community. For Black people as a whole. It just, it means a whole lot.”
King explained he and Alberts received an invitation to the signing because of how impressed the governor’s staff was with St. Cloud’s Juneteenth celebration in 2022. Governor Walz will sign the designation on February 3rd at the Capitol.
The City of St. Cloud will have its official festivities on Friday, June 16th, from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Eastman Park on the shores of Lake George.
Juneteenth was designated as a federal holiday in 2021.
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