Beshear executive order makes Juneteenth a state holiday

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear designated Juneteenth as a holiday for state executive branch workers on Thursday and expanded protections in state hiring and employment by banning discrimination based on hairstyles.

The separate executive orders signed by the Democratic governor represented his latest outreach to Black Kentuckians — but also reflected limits to that outreach.

Beshear took the actions after efforts to make Juneteenth a statewide holiday and outlaw discrimination based on hairstyles failed in the state’s Republican-supermajority legislature.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the Civil War. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation establishing it as a federal holiday.

One Beshear order declares that starting this year, Juneteenth will be observed as a state executive branch holiday. All executive branch offices will be closed.

Legislation to make Juneteenth a Kentucky holiday was introduced this year by state Sen. Gerald Neal, the chamber’s top-ranking Democrat. It made no headway before the session ended last month. Neal signaled Thursday that he will try again in the 2025 session.

The other executive order expands protections in state hiring and employment by prohibiting discrimination based on “traits historically associated with race, including but not limited to natural hair texture and protective hairstyles, such as braids, locks and twists.”

Protections are needed because the state has a “diverse workforce full of talented, hard-working Kentuckians from all different backgrounds,” the governor said. “That’s what makes us special.”

Bills to ban discrimination based on hairstyles at work and school have died in recent legislative sessions.