Sen. Tina Smith was among a small group of lawmakers gathered around President Joe Biden last week as he signed legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.
Smith spent a year working on the bill to mark the June 19, 1865, date when Union soldiers informed enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, of their freedom. That news came two months after the end of the Civil War and nearly 2½ years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Marking the Senate's unanimous passage of the bill she pushed, Smith envisioned the victory as a possible momentum builder in other efforts to expand and protect voting rights and pass new police reforms.
"It can sometimes feel like the work we have to do is too hard and nothing is ever going to change," Smith said in an interview after the bill signing. "We can't become complacent. We have to find moments of hope like we did today."
Smith's bill also passed the House with broad bipartisan support. Every member of Minnesota's delegation voted in favor. Joining Smith and her congressional colleagues on stage with the president was activist Opal Lee, who at the age of 89 walked halfway across the country to collect signatures in support of creating the new holiday.
"To think I had a little role pushing this work that people have been doing for decades across the finish line is really great," Smith said.
