Recommendation to declare Juneteenth as a Day of Celebration in Long Beach, request City Attorney to draft a resolution calling on President Biden and Congress to make Juneteenth a national holiday and Governor Newsom and the California State Legislature to make it a state holiday, and refer to the Federal Legislation Committee and State Legislation Committee for consideration of inclusion in the City’s Legislative Agendas.
Next up, we're going to do item 18. Communication from Councilman Austin councilman's in Dallas Fires. Mayor Richardson recommendation declared Juneteenth as a day of celebration in Long Beach. Request city attorney to draft a resolution calling on President Biden and Congress to make Juneteenth a national holiday. And Governor Newsom and the California state legislature to make it a state holiday and refer to the federal legislation committee and state legislation committee. Councilman Austin. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And of course, I want to thank my colleagues, Councilwoman Zendaya's and Grace Meyer, for signing on to this important item. Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. And on June 19th, 1965, union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas, with word that the Civil War had ended and that those enslaved were now free. Even though praise of President Abraham Lincoln at the time had issued the immense citizen proclamation more than two years earlier. So the celebration of June 19 was coined Juneteenth as a combination of June 19th. Today, Juneteenth celebrates African American freedom, cultural contributions and achievement while encouraging self-development and respect for all. It also recognizes our history and educates about a significant moment in our nation's history. Juneteenth National Independence Day Act was introduced in both the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. And it hasn't been passed yet. And I would like our state and federal legislation committees to consider including this as part of their our legislative agenda to mark Juneteenth as a state and federal holiday. Juneteenth celebration is planned this year here in Long Beach on June 19 on the historic Pine Avenue, which will have so many significant, I think, meanings as well. We'll be celebrating. Juneteenth will also be celebrating the reopening of our of our our our state and our city. And I think it's a great time for us all to come together as a city to celebrate the event, which I believe will become a premier celebration in the city and in Southern California, will feature a variety of music, including blues, jazz, gospel, traditional drumming as well as a step show, poetry and speakers. That's the event. But we're also promoting that as well and encouraging support for that event. But I want to just mention that Long Beach is a leader in celebrating diversity. We know that we support social justice and equity in our city and we foster mutual respect and understanding for all. This is an event that that is consistent with that. And I said we should declare Juneteenth as a day of celebration here in the city of Long Beach and join the growing momentum behind this issue and add our voice to a call to make Juneteenth a national holiday. I want to just encourage your support, but also want to thank a few people in the community who've been really working hard to bring light to this this issue and fuel to the work. And that is, you know, Mr. Crockett, who has is a lead organizer on this Antioch Church and Pastor Jane Wayne and my sister Chaney are debate. And thank you, Councilwoman Zendejas this will be a your event and we'll be kicking off and building momentum on this. And of course, the African-American cultural center of Long Beach and many more organizations that are getting behind this this event, but also this cause and support, this item. So, again, I would thank you for entertaining this, think my co-sponsors and encourage your support. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Vice Mayor Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Perry. Thank you, Councilman Austin. You know, we've we've acknowledged Juneteenth in the past and Long Beach. For many people, it's fairly new. And I think, Councilman, also for introducing the idea, I think is really about acknowledge it and allow folks to acknowledge, you know, the full history here in America, particularly with our difficult history on race and on slavery and racial healing. And I have to say, you know, it was just a year ago that the council began the process of the framework reconciliation. So I think it makes a lot of sense that here on Juneteenth, it's almost exactly a year ago that, you know, we began that conversation here on Juneteenth. We acknowledge where we are definitely a inflection point in our in our nation. You know, I also want to want to say that to the organizers of the Juneteenth event, Caro and Antioch and everyone, I think, first of all, thank you for organizing the event. I know that you reached out to my office, the mayor's office, Councilman Alston's office, about moving forward with the acknowledgment, but also know that you requested some support for that event. And, you know, the idea was to bring bring an item to give some one time. I want to ask the city manager or city attorney, is that okay? Can I just tack in on this motion today to add some actual support from the City Council? I'd like to offer up for my one time's 20 $500 to help. And what opened up anybody else that wants to do that to help with that event? But I want to ask city city manager, is that appropriate? Do I need to put that on the item? I love to just be vice mayor. Yes. You could amend the motion to add some one time dollars. To your event. Okay. I love I love to do that announcement cost and I want to offer that as an amendment. And vice mayor, we would then come back later with all the appropriation language. So we're just it'd be good to know today if there's interest in doing that. And then we can we can do the dollars later. Right? Absolutely. Except that Friendly and I had planned on doing so as a as an act for my office as well. So there will be some resources move in that direction and encourage as much support as possible, not only from the city council, but to those private entities who may be listening as well. Absolutely. But I think this is a step in the right direction. We certainly should acknowledge this at this moment. And I'm really incredibly proud that our community organically stood up and said, this is the time, this is the year. Calvin also said it best. We're coming out of that. You know, we're coming out. So we're celebrating quite a few things. So I certainly will be there with my family and look forward to a happy Juneteenth. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is council member Ringo. I want to thank my council colleague bringing this forward. Customer Austin customer from member Richardson Reisman Region. Every year before COVID, we would always have some kind of celebration, and it's something that I greatly miss. It's a great opportunity to share our culture that we've been doing the last several years in the city, and I think this would be a great opportunity and I'm looking forward to continuing this discussion as part of the as Chair of the State Legislative Committee. Thank you. Thank you. Catherine. Sara. Thank you, Mayor. And I want to thank Councilmember Austin for leading on this agenda item, as all the other council colleagues supporting it. And as a federal judge committee member, I certainly support this and also support ensuring that we continue to do education about and acknowledge the impact of slavery. And I want to also share that, you know, District six has historically celebrated Freedom Day or Juneteenth. And, you know, my residents and a group have come together and are also doing an event. And the Martin Luther King Jr Park on Saturday, June 28th. So if you're not able to make it on the 19th, come on over to the sixth District and join us as well. And so I just want to thank you all for, I think, Councilmember Austin, for ensuring that we continue to acknowledge this while a very, very dark time in our history, that we continue to also acknowledge that we see the impact and that we continue to do the education. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up is Councilwoman Dana. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you very much to Councilmember Austin for this item and Vice Mayor Richardson. I think this is very important in recognizing not only the good, but also the dark reality of our history as a nation and as people is not always easy and is often very uncomfortable, but it is very, very much necessary . It breaks my heart to know that for about two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, many people were still enslaved. And it wasn't until June 19, 1865, that they learned the news of their freedom. I believe that in recognizing this at a local, state and national level is a crucial step in moving forward a much brighter tomorrow, and a step that also serves as a much needed message in support of social justice and equity for Juneteenth. Offers offers us exactly that. An opportunity to heal. To celebrate the African American freedom and culture. And also serves as a reminder that us all that to us all that we still have much, much more work to do. Again, I want to thank council member Austin and Vice Mayor Richardson for introducing and I am in total support of this item. I am also super, super excited to be hosting our Juneteenth celebration right here in District one on June 19. So thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is. Councilwoman Allen. Thank you, Mayor. And I also want to thank council member Austin and Vice Mayor Rex Richardson and Cindy Haas for putting this item forward. I just want to say it is an absolutely fantastic item and I absolutely 100% support recognition and celebration as we honor Juneteenth as a national and a national holiday would be absolutely fitting. I also have submitted a letter to the Budget Department to support the event. So I know that there is a motion on the floor with the vice mayor, so I don't know if I need to change anything there so staff can let me know. But just fantastic item and I look forward to supporting this in every way. Thank you, Councilwoman Pryce. Q Mr. Mayor, and thank you to the comments of my colleagues and my colleagues who brought this item forward. Councilman Zandi, has your your comments were spot on in terms of of the importance of the recognition and the fact that we're hosting this in your district. I'm really looking forward to that. And so thank you for those comments. I know that Karl Kemp is one of the organizers. I think the mayor and I have known Carl for decades now since our end. And Councilman Sun has I remember we we knew him when we were in student government at Cal State Long Beach together . So we've known him for a very long time. He did reach out to me. I have committed some private dollars to him, albeit a lot smaller of a number than what's been proposed in the and the friendly, but at a at a level that I support a lot of causes that are important to me privately. So I'm very happy to do that. And I, I wholeheartedly support this item. Thank you for that. Before we go to public comment, I just want to just echo what everyone said. I think this is a great step forward. And I also personally just want to thank Mr. Kemp, I think, for really kind of stepping forward and really organizing and doing a lot of the work to get this event off the ground with so many other partners. I think maybe with two or three weeks ago I was just riding bikes and I remember I was riding my bike right down Pyne and saw him and he stopped me. And this actually must've been more like a month, a month or two ago. And he was out there with another person that we know and just talking about the event and it was really excited about it. So I just love his energy and his passion for recognizing and parts of my history that are that are very painful but are really important to to to also recognize what came out of that pain and what continues to be a struggle and an uplifting of of an important, critical part of our American history. So I'm just very grateful to the Carl and to all of you for bringing this forward as well. So with that, is there any public comment? Yes, we have one public comment. Tasha Hunter, please begin. Hi. Good afternoon, Mayor Garcia, City Council member, staff and community members. My name is Tasha Hunter and I'm a proud District eight resident as well as the president of the African American Cultural Center of Long Beach and a very proud member of the black African American community. With that being said, I'm here to support this item enthusiastically, and I'm happy to know that we live in a city that is willing to support an item of recognition and realizing the importance of this day, Juneteenth. My my maternal great great grandparents were born into slavery in Virginia and Florida. And so many of us raised in black households know and have celebrated Juneteenth for as long as we can remember. But for so many, it's not been known, nor has it been celebrated. This is an educational opportunity for city, for our country. And with that being said, this item follows the trajectory of where we see our city or state, our country moving towards in an effort to not only reconcile, but also to recognize the contribution of black folks, our ancestors, elders and our people that have been monumental for over a century in the city of Long Beach and centuries in this country, to say the least. As a number one recognized celebration for freedom from the horrific institution of enslavement in the United States. We wholeheartedly support this item for state recognition, and we support this item for nationwide recognition. Thank you, Councilman Lawson, for consistently being a champion for the voice of the people. Thank you, Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, for your support and reconciliation efforts. And Councilwoman Mary's and Day House for also supporting this item. And a very special thank you to my brother Carl Kemp for his focused, compassionate and dedicated planning. And this year's this year's event, in partnership with the LBA and many other work for the past Council persons in the Sixth District that have continued to celebrate Juneteenth from our beloved Councilwoman Mother, Dorothy Top, the El Roy Moore, Richardson, Dee Andrews. And thank you to Councilwoman Su Sara for continuing to recognize this important day in District six. Lastly, I want to recognize all the smaller organizations that have been holding down their own Juneteenth celebration for many years and lobbied to take part to downtown Long Beach and to the African American Historic Society. And our local historian, John Malvo, was never stopped. His efforts of keeping this and many other important chapters in black history relevant and heard. This is the work that the ACP, the African American Cultural Center of Miami, also aims to do along with city council. We ask that you vote in favor of this item. We ask that you vote in favor of celebrating black freedom. Thank you. Thank you. And I know I believe we have some public comment. Are there additional public comment? I know that Mr. Kemp is actually on the line and he may have signed up for item night, a different item. So he's trying to be what he was supposed to be on both. So, Madam Court, can you get Mr. Kemp on the line, please? Yes. Give us just one moment and we'll get Mr. Kemp on the line. Carl. Ken, this is item 18. Please begin. Yes. Simply thank you to Councilman Al Austin, Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, Councilman Mary's and de Haas, Mayor Garcia, and to all the city council. I support this motion to declare Juneteenth as a day of celebration in the city of Long Beach. While calling on President Biden to make it a national holiday and Governor Newsom to make it a state holiday, I applaud the bold motion by Councilman Austin, Vice Mayor Rex Richardson and Councilwoman Van de House. I respectfully encourage unanimous support from the council. Juneteenth may be new to many, but it's one of the most important of all American holidays there is. It offers us an opportunity to confront our ugliest sense the enslavement of human beings so brutal and inhumane that it's almost unimaginable. At the time, at the same time gives us the ability to celebrate freedom and the cultural contributions African-Americans have infused into every aspect of American culture. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, my city made me proud with his courageous march into complex conversations on race and developing policies that move us as a city and a society towards reconciling our difficult past. Those subtle. You brought added dignity to my people by changing your official policy to capitalize black when referring to people of African descent. And thank you for that executive leadership. Mayor Garcia, in both cases, you, as our elected officials led recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday, as a leadership moment. Mayor Beverly O'Neal once told me that Long Beach is a small enough town that you can make a difference in it and a large enough town that the difference you make will matter in the world. By recognizing Juneteenth as a day of celebration or even as an official city holiday, Long Beach, with its size and diversity, can lead the way towards national recognition by similar sized cities and ultimately the nation. Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia recognized Juneteenth as a paid holiday. Cook County, Chicago recognizes the paid holiday. Twitter square, adobe all day Lyft, NFL, Nike, Postmates, Target and Uber. And many more companies now recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday. After 400 years of free labor extracted from the blood of black Americans, one day of recognition and celebration of freedom seems more than reasonable. I want to thank those who came before me Connie Oden, Ahmed Saffir, John Malvo, Laura Richardson, the The Andrews, for their investment in Juneteenth as a celebration for our community. I want to thank our sponsors, our title, sponsors of the debate and Antioch Church. I appreciate Craig Cogan and Pastor Wayne Chaney stepping out on faith to support an event they saw as worthy. The Port of Long Beach, Catalyst, water for developers really. And so many more for investing their their time, their prayers and their funding to make this event happen. We have a fantastic event lined up. We hope to see you all there. We hope to celebrate with you. And again, I'm probably over my time and I want to respect yours, but I just want to end by saying thank you for your leadership, your bold vision. And I do hope to see you on June the 19th celebrating with us the beauty of African American culture on the same streets that this time last year saw us protesting together. Again, thank you for the time and I appreciate it. Thank you. That concludes public comment. Thank you. So there's no there no other public comment on the line. No, there's not. Okay. With that, we're going to do a roll call vote, please. District one. I district to. Hi. District three. I district for. My. District five. I District six. And. District seven. I. District eight. Hi. District nine. All right. Russian Kurds.