The City of Dallas will replace the LGBTQ+ Pride flag at City Hall with a Juneteenth flag on Friday.
A resolution to fly a Juneteenth flag at City Hall and other City facilities from June 16 to June 19 was unanimously passed by the Dallas City Council on Wednesday.
An official City of Dallas Pride Flag was raised at City Hall on June 1 and is being flown at City facilities throughout June to commemorate LGBTQ+ Pride Month, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
It will be taken down for four days as the Juneteenth flag is flown in its place.
Texas Representatives Venton Jones and Rhetta Bowers came to City Hall on Wednesday to voice their support of the resolution to council members.
Several council members spoke in favor of flying the Juneteenth flag and discussed the importance of the holiday for Texans.
Council Member Carolyn King Arnold said a flag-raising ceremony will be held at City Hall on Friday, adding that celebrating Juneteenth will unite people and help people realize they have “more things in common.”
“It is not something that should separate us, it is something that should bring us together,” she said.
Council Member Omar Narvaez claimed that temporarily replacing the official City of Dallas Pride Flag with a Juneteenth flag has wide support in the LGBTQ+ community.
“Raising a flag isn’t the end-all-be-all,” he said. “But it is a symbol of hope. It is a symbol saying that Dallas will continue to fight for equity, fight for diversity, fight for inclusion.”
Council Member Adam Bazaldua added that this move will “help history not be forgotten.”
He also claimed there is an “attack” going on in the United States to “whitewash” the nation’s history, especially regarding “race relations.”
This resolution was brought before the council last week during a briefing session, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
While the Juneteenth flag will fly from June 16 to June 19 this year, it will be flown annually from June 18 to June 20 in subsequent years.
Juneteenth — celebrated June 19 — marks the purported anniversary of Union troops delivering news of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to Galveston Bay in 1865, essentially freeing the last enslaved people in the former Confederacy.
The holiday has been celebrated in various forms by African-American communities and Texans since the late 1800s.
In 1872, four former slaves purchased a 10-acre plot in Houston, named the land Emancipation Park, and used the location to host annual Juneteenth festivities.
Texas officially recognized Juneteenth as a holiday in 1980, but the observance of Juneteenth has spread across the nation in recent years.
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