Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney has signed an executive order that adds a new holiday to the city calendar and changes the name of another. The changes are just one response to a series of racial justice protests. The executive order makes June 19, or Juneteenth, a city holiday until the end of the Kenney administration, in commemoration of the final emancipation of remaining slaves held in the United States until 1865.

Deputy Mayor Cynthia Figueroa, who co-chairs the Reform, Transformation and Reconciliation Committee created in the aftermath of last summer's protests, said the administration hopes to make the holiday permanent as part of bargaining with city worker unions this year. "It was always the mayor’s intention to keep it as an ongoing official city holiday," said Figueroa.