![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Juneteenth-720x330-1-jpg.webp?resize=720%2C330&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nJuneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the U.S., is already recognized by cities like Tampa, St. Pete, and Clearwater. But Lakeland was a holdout until recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in February, community members showed up to a city commission meeting and asked city leaders to make it a holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJuneteenth is our Fourth of July. And that\u2019s when we begin as Americans. That\u2019s when we share this wonderful country,\u201d Virginia Robinson said during that meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some commissioners, however, were hesitant and wanted to study the idea more before making a decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, on April 1, commissioners revisited the issue and made their decision. They voted unanimously to make Juneteenth an official city holiday, starting this year on Wednesday, June 19th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
City offices will be closed, city workers will have the day off, and if they\u2019re required to work, they\u2019ll get holiday pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few months later, with Juneteenth now here, Lakeland Branch NAACP President Terry Coney is still celebrating the city\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor the city, it was like kind of wrapping its arms around a segment of the city that felt like it had been ignored,\u201d Coney said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, he and Smith hope those who now get the day off will use it for more than relaxing. They hope they\u2019ll use it for learning and reflecting too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope that they reflect on not just having the day off to go and grill, but reflect on the purpose and the meaning behind Juneteenth,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a couple Juneteenth community events coming up in Lakeland to help the community mark the occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Saturday, June 29, the Juneteenth Freedom Festival will happen at the Simpson Park Community Center (1725 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. in Lakeland). The free community event will run from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Next week, for the first time, the City Of Lakeland will recognize Juneteenth as an official city holiday. \u201cIt shows you that things can be done in numbers,\u201d said Marchina… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[8819],"class_list":["post-46643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-lakeland-set-to-officially-recognize-juneteenth-for-first-time"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46645,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46643\/revisions\/46645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}