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Employers discover Juneteenth

Bloomberg Equality
Bloomberg

It's the litmus test of the week: How are companies observing Juneteenth this Friday, June 19? Thanks to nationwide protests in the weeks since four Minneapolis police employees killed George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, U.S. businesses are under pressure to acknowledge the legacy of slavery and to mark the day, which commemorates emancipation. Some companies, like Target, Twitter, Nike and J.C. Penney, are making Friday a paid holiday, with workers either off duty or receiving holiday pay. Big banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, however, have only invited employees to use their paid time off. JPMorgan and some other banks will have shorter holiday hours.

Juneteenth is not a federal holiday, but the White House was forced to take notice nevertheless. President Donald Trump announced last week that he would resume his campaign rallies on June 19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where in 1921 White mobs destroyed a Black business district and massacred Black residents. Trump later delayed his event after an outcry.

The next test will be how Americans at large treat Juneteenth. Will they honor the day? Or will it end up as another long holiday weekend, one during which people run to appliance sales or head to the lake rather than reflect on the nation's original sin? —Philip Gray

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Also likely to help: Banks are tying executive compensation to progress on diversity.

Walmart employs 340,000 Black workers, but their membership in the retailer's executive ranks has fallen since 2015

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What curfews achieve, and what they don't 

The restrictions that many cities deployed recently during mass civil unrest were not new, but a classic move historically intended to "contain" African Americans, according to Bloomberg CityLab. "This idea of the curfew really goes back to slavery and Black-White relations, and not just in the South," said one sociologist. Some towns and cities with "sundown laws" had curfews that applied only to Black people. In other cases, like the Watts riots in Los Angeles in 1965, cities brought down curfews during demonstrations to restore order. They have had mixed success, but they consistently create tension, resentment, and sometimes violence.

 

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