Juneteenth steps toward state holiday status

OLYMPIA – Rep. Kirsten Harris-Talley, D-Seattle, often sees her grandmother’s features when she looks in the mirror. She thinks of how her grandmother, a woman of color, experienced systemic racism and fought for a better life despite societal barriers in rural Missouri only a few generations before Harris-Talley.

Harris-Talley told the House of Representatives Feb. 25 she supported Juneteenth as a state holiday because of the existence of structural racism in the country today. She said what may seem like a simple acknowledgement could go a long way in building an “antiracist society,” one sh...