Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey declares Juneteenth a permanent company holiday
Dorsey, also CEO of Square, called Juneteenth 'a day for celebration, education, and connection'
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, has declared Juneteenth will permanently be an annual company holiday in the United States, calling it "a day for celebration, education, and connection."
"Countries and regions around the world have their own days to celebrate emancipation," Dorsey added. "We will do the work to make those dates company holidays everywhere we are present."
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TWTR | NO DATA AVAILABLE | - | - | - |
| SQ | BLOCK INC. | 93.36 | +4.85 | +5.48% |
TWITTER DISABLES TRUMP CAMPAIGN'S GEORGE FLOYD VIDEO TRIBUTE
Juneteenth, which is celebrated on June 19, is the oldest national celebration of the end of slavery in the United States.
The holiday dates back to 1865 when Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, landed in Galveston, Texas, with news that slavery in the United States was over. It came two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which became official on Jan. 1, 1863.
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The move by Twitter comes as a growing list of tech companies have voiced their support for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the death of George Floyd, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, and YouTube.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 207.89 | +2.15 | +1.05% |
| MSFT | MICROSOFT CORP. | 423.46 | +0.47 | +0.11% |
| FB | NO DATA AVAILABLE | - | - | - |
| GOOGL | ALPHABET INC. | 168.95 | -0.28 | -0.17% |
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 237.33 | +2.40 | +1.02% |
Big tech has also made multimillion-dollar donations to organizations helping to combat racial injustice.