Juniteenth: How 9 brands are celebrating the new federal holiday in 2021

On Thursday, President Biden signed a bill declaring June 10 a federal holiday, the day after the bill was passed by the House of Representatives following Senate approval on Tuesday. The oldest commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, the Juneteenth, honors June 19, 1865, when a proclamation in Galveston, Texas declared that slaves were finally free – two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Few holidays have made it onto the calendars of large and small businesses with the same speed and determination. Last year, brands from Adobe to Nike to the NFL made June thenth a paid holiday.

For many entrepreneurs, the question is not whether they will celebrate the historic event, but how. While free time is the most common way of honoring the day, many companies take it a step further.

“I’m not losing weight on Juneteenth. The way I see it, our ancestors died so I could do what I do. I want to work,” said Fawn Weaver, founder and CEO of Inc. Best in Business award winner Uncle Next Whiskey . Weaver is also the first woman and the first African American founder to establish a major liquor brand in the United States.

Based in Shelbyville, Tennessee, Uncle Nearest operates from the rehabilitated distillery of “Uncle” Nearest Green, the enslaved man who originally taught Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. After being closed to the public for just over a year, the Nearest Green Distillery is expecting more than 10,000 people for its grand reopening on June 19.

“I think this reopening is a celebration of what African Americans have never done before,” says Weaver. “When we talk about being the wildest dreams of our ancestors, I think that none of them would be able to see in their minds what we can achieve today.”

Weaver also recently launched a $ 50 million annual fund to support two emerging BIPOC and women-led liquor brands; the amount is roughly twice the total adjusted dollar value lost during the 1921 Black Wall Street massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Here’s what eight other U.S. companies, in addition to OOO, are doing to celebrate America’s first federal holiday this June.

Founded last year and owned by Black, Actively Black, Actively Black, regularly donates a portion of its sales to causes that promote the physical and mental health of the Black community. On June 19, the company is also hosting a virtual run where participants can post photos with the hashtag #JuneteenthVirtualRun. Runners can register through the company’s website, and all proceeds are donated to the Liberation Fund, a Houston-based organization devoted to the pro bono defense of victims of police misconduct.

“We are supposed to celebrate the official end of slavery, but to this day there are still people who are enslaved by some of these circumstances,” says founder Lanny Smith. “So while we’re partying, we’re still fighting.”

Austin-based software company Agile Assets serves public construction companies on five continents, and the company’s 100+ employees hail from 20 different countries and speak a dozen languages. Founder Stuart Hudson added three new holidays in 2021 that emphasize diversity: Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and a personal holiday that allows employees to celebrate according to their culture.

The e-commerce giant announced this week the launch of the Black Business Accelerator, a program designed to support third-party Blacks on its website. The initiative includes a $ 150 million commitment over the next four years to help thousands of black entrepreneurs in the form of financial assistance, marketing, advertising, and business support. Amazon developed it in partnership with the Minority Business Development Agency, the National Minority Supplier Development Council, and US Black Chambers Inc.

The internet music company is hosting its second annual June fundraiser on Friday, June 18. Bandcamp will donate 100 percent of its revenue share to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The fundraiser “is part of our larger, ongoing commitment to racial justice, and we will continue to promote diversity and opportunity through the products we develop, advertise on Bandcamp Daily and Bandcamp Radio, how we work as a team, who and how we hire and our relationships with organizations near our Oakland location, “says Bandcamp Co-Founder and CEO Ethan Diamond. The company supports racist equality organizations like the East Oakland Collective, the East Oakland Youth Development Center, the Hidden Genius Project, the Oakland Black Business Fund and Oakland Kids First.

Last year, CEO Andrew Wilson declared Juneteenth a company-wide day of volunteering, including activities organized by the Black Electronic Arts team’s staff resource group. Since then, the game developer and his staff have donated $ 2.6 million to organizations fighting systemic racial injustice and discrimination, including the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. In honor of this year’s holiday, the company announced it would match employee donations to nearly 30 organizations, totaling up to $ 500,000.

The largest black-owned bank – and only black-owned digital bank – in the US is hosting on the 15th. The conference, titled One Transaction, will encourage black Americans to focus on a transaction that will increase their net worth in 2021, such as Home ownership, an investment portfolio, or an improved credit score. The speakers include the FUBU founder and Shark tank Judge Daymond John, the founder of the Blackout Coalition, Calvin Martyr, and the founder of Lendistry, Everett Sands.

Founder Delane Parnell, who set up one of the biggest Series A rounds of all time for a Black founder in 2018, took company holidays on Juniteenth and Election Day at his Los Angeles-based esports company. Employees have this Friday off and are encouraged to respect the holiday. Last year, Parnell and several employees took part in a car parade through town in June. The company made lump-sum donations to Black Lives Matter and the Southern Poverty Law Center. It also participates in a donation-matching program for employees, as well as a community program that funds computer labs for low-income schools. “We have the ambition to exist in a fairer world and we take responsibility for doing what is necessary to achieve this,” the company said in a statement.