Statement from Governor Phil Scott on Juneteenth

Montpelier, Vt. - Governor Phil Scott today issued the following statement:

“On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Lincoln proclaimed all enslaved people in the Confederacy, “henceforth and forever free,” Union soldiers finally made their way to Texas to deliver the news to nearly 250,000 American slaves that the war was over, the south had lost, that each of them were now free.

“We celebrate Juneteenth as the end of slavery in America, but more importantly, we mark this day because we understand that equality is not created with the sweep of a pen and that we must never stop fighting for true equality and freedom for all, each and every day.”