Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman and I'm Toby Howell and Neil. Today's show is another special holiday episode.

Yup, just like Memorial Day last month, we pre-recorded an episode that is a little different from our standard NBD news rundown.

We actually have a special guest coming on the show from the Morning Brew universe. We won't spoil it yet, but we're super excited to have her.

But before we jump into the meat of the show, Neil, by the time people listen to today's episode, it'll be June 10th.

It's one of the newer federal holidays, so Neil gives us a quick rundown of why we're all hopefully not working today.

Happy to. So this is the newest federal holiday, only two years old now that celebrates the end of slavery in the US.

There's an interesting backstory here. Many people associate the end of slavery with the emancipation proclamation that was issued in 1863.

But even after that proclamation, slavery didn't just magically disappear overnight. It was a gradual process.

Juneteenth began in Texas as a celebration of the day that 2000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston a full two years after the emancipation proclamation

and announced to the more than 250,000 enslaved people in this state that they were free.

So that day was June 19th, and that's where we get Juneteenth.

Right. And despite being celebrated in Texas since way back when it is now celebrated in all 50 states,

that's because President Biden signed legislation back in 2021,

establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Fun fact, it's now the 12th federal holiday.

But Biden put pen to paper to bring Juneteenth national in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests around the murder of George Floyd.

And the goal of the holiday is to not only celebrate African Americans and reflect on the history of slavery in the US.

But it's also just a time for all Americans to learn about and kind of check in on the progress that has and hasn't been made toward racial equality in the US.

Of course, that's just a very brief overview of Juneteenth and its history.

So we'll provide some links in the description to this podcast to learn more about the holiday and dive deeper if you want to.

But I hope you all are having a wonderful day whenever and wherever you're listening to this episode from.

Now Neil, tell us a little bit more about this episode we have coming up.

Sure. So as we mentioned today's episode will be a little different than the standard morning brood daily.

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