Dorchester's Juneteenth Exhibit Marks First Time Massachusetts Observes Statewide Holiday

DORCHESTER (CBS) – A special exhibit commemorating Juneteenth was unveiled Wednesday at the Commonwealth Museum in Dorchester.

June 19 marks the day in 1865 the final enslaved people in America learned they had been freed. Now, for the first time, Massachusetts will observe the date as a statewide holiday.

The exhibit features a total of 14 documents created from 1641-1865. Among them are an order from the Massachusetts Adjutant General announcing the emancipation proclamation, the act by the Massachusetts Legislature ratifying the 13th Amendment that ended slavery in America, and a letter from Frederick Douglass.

Secretary of State William Galvin was there at the grand opening. "This commemoration and these documents remind us how individual citizens can make a difference, and individuals citizens can move a government, and individuals citizens can be a movement, and individuals citizens can get a result, and we are challenged to get that result in the years to come," he said.

The display will be available for public view only through the holiday on Saturday.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to designate Juneteenth as a federal holiday. The House still needs to take up the measure. If it passes in the House and President Joe Biden signs it, it will be the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Day was designated in 1983.