Families enjoy the festivities at the City of Beaumont's annual Juneteenth celebration in Tyrrell Park Saturday. Families gathered under tents to enjoy the day-long festivities, cooking out as they enjoyed the entertainment and activities for children. June 19 marks the final abolition of slavery in the United States. Though the Emancipation Proclamation had been made 2 years prior, Texas was slow to the rights of former slaves. June 19, federal troops marched into Galveston to enforce the law, finally bringing the era of slavery to a close. Photo taken Thursday, June 18, 2015 Kim Brent/The EnterpriseKim Brent / Kim Brent/The Enterprise

At a time when partisan bickering and racial tensions are uncomfortably high, the last thing the American people might expect is a bill making Juneteenth a national holiday not just passing the sharply divided Senate, but doing so unanimously. But that is exactly what happened this week, and this legislation is a reflection of all that is good in this country.

This bill probably wouldn’t have happened if it had been for the persistent support of Texas Sen. John Cornyn. He has been pushing it in Washington for more than a year, first proposing it in the national trauma after the police killing of George Floyd. That effort did not succeed, but this year all the pieces of the puzzle came together.

This conservative Republican partnered with U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston, one of the most liberal Democrats in the House, to steer this bill through both chambers. That kind of bipartisanship is rare in Washington these days.

Democrats hold a slim majority in the U.S. House, and it is expected that this bill will pass by strong margins there — we hope with a lot of Republican support. The Senate was a trickier challenge, but Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., made a motion to pass the bill via unanimous consent, and no senator objected. Even Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, one of the most conservative members of the Senate who had previously opposed the bill, got on board. President Biden has indicated he will sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk, creating the 11th federal holiday.

Texans can be especially proud of this achievement because Juneteenth is part of this state’s history. It has been a state holiday for four decades, and over the years more and more other states began appreciating it too. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia now observe it as a state holiday.

Texans always knew there was something special about June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger landed in Galveston and proclaimed that slavery had been ended by President Abraham Lincoln when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863.

But the end of the Civil War was still two years away when Lincoln signed that historic document, and slavery continued in the Confederate states until they were taken by Union troops or formally surrendered.

Granger’s proclamation freed the last remaining slaves because Texas was so isolated from the rest of the Confederacy. Even then, historians believe it took some time for the word to filter though all of Texas. Cornyn and Lee also authored a bill for a federal study of a National Emancipation Trail from Galveston to Houston, following the path of former slaves who learned of their freedom and went out to spread the news.

June 19 — Juneteenth, as it has come to be known affectionately — was the final nail in the coffin of slavery. As such, it should be celebrated in Texas, and the rest of the nation. In fact, African Americans in Texas had been celebrating this holiday throughout the 19th and 20th centuries before it became an official state holiday.

Texans will once again celebrate Juneteenth this Saturday as a state holiday. But on that date in 2022, it should be a national holiday, and that’s something all Americans can be proud of.