Chiefs, Broncos Announce Juneteenth Will Be Paid Company Holiday

Denver Broncos President and CEO Joe Ellis announced Monday the team would observe Juneteenth—celebrated on June 19 every year—as a permanent paid holiday.  

The UCHealth Training Center and Empower Field at Mile High will both be closed for the holiday.

The Kansas City Chiefs also announced Juneteenth as a company holiday Monday:

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced last week the league office would be closed in observance of Juneteenth:

"This year, as we work together as a family and in our communities to combat the racial injustices that remain deeply rooted into the fabric of our society, the NFL will observe Juneteenth on Friday, June 19th as a recognized holiday and our league offices will be closed. It is a day to reflect on our past, but more importantly, consider how each one of us can continue to show up and band together to work toward a better future."

Juneteenth is not currently recognized as a national holiday, though Washington D.C. and 47 other states recognize it as a day of observance or as a holiday.

The holiday celebrates June 19, 1865—more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation—when Union Major General Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and informed the state's slaves they had been freed by executive order.

The Emancipation Proclamation itself didn't automatically free slaves in all parts of the country, as it "only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control," per Elizabeth Nix of History.com.

As for Texas, since the state didn't host major battles during the Civil War and didn't have a large presence of Union forces, slavery continued in the state after the Emancipation Proclamation and after the Civil War ended until Granger's arrival. 

Juneteenth was followed by the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery, on Dec. 6, 1865. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 came shortly after, which extended citizenship to emancipated slaves.