Idaho town votes to remove Juneteenth as official city holiday

‘Juneteenth is something that nobody had heard of until five years ago and was pushed for political purposes,’ Post Falls mayor Randy Westlund told City Council, ignoring the history of Texans and generations of Americans who have celebrated the end of slavery in the United States.

When the 117th Congress recognized Juneteenth as an official national holiday in 2021, few could predict how far celebrations would go across the country. According to one Idaho city, those celebrations will not be taking place in 2026.

The city council in Post Falls, Idaho, voted earlier this week to remove Juneteenth from the official city holiday list and restore Columbus Day to the calendar.

The measure passed with a 4-2 vote. Post Falls Mayor Randy Westlund said Columbus Day is a better holiday to celebrate “American heritage.” Reactions to the change were mixed on the council.

“Juneteenth celebrates the actual end of slavery in the United States, and the abolition of slavery, I believe, is one of the crowning achievements of Western civilization [and] is certainly worthy of celebration,” Post Falls City councilmember Joe Malloy said. “On the flip side, North America as we know it and the United States entirely would not exist if we’re not for the expeditions of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers, which are also worth celebrating. So I don’t know if you consider doing it every other year type of thing, but I think both are very relevant to our history and worth celebrating.”

“I don’t want to change the holiday schedule,” Westlund responded. “I think that’s a lot of complexity. My own view is that Juneteenth is something that nobody had heard of until five years ago and was pushed for political purposes, and so I’m not in favor of having that in.”

Others, like councilman Marc Lucca, suggested that Martin Luther King Day is a better-suited holiday to recognize civil rights achievements.

“Columbus Day was not initially a holiday just because of Christopher Columbus. It was a civil rights movement in response to a very dark time of persecution against Italian Americans,” he said, adding that struggles of other groups like Italian Americans have been overlooked to focus on the “louder civil rights struggle of others solely based on they’re African American, Hispanic American, or some other category.”

The maneuver only affects the city’s official holiday schedule as Juneteenth remains recognized as a federal and national holiday.