Taylor Swift has opened up about the importance of Juneteenth in a series of posts on Twitter.
Early on Friday morning, the singer shared an article from The Root that included a video of the history of the holiday - when the Emancipation Proclamation was read to Texan slaves on 19 June 1865, after the South lost the U.S. Civil War - and explained "why it should be celebrated as a National holiday".
"Happy Juneteenth! I want to thank @TheRoot and @RhapsoDani for allowing me to post this video about the significance of today," Taylor tweeted right after the stroke of midnight on 19 June.
The 30-year-old continued: "Personally, I've made the decision to give all of my employees June 19th off in honour of Freedom Day from now on, and to continue to educate myself on the history that brought us to this present moment.
"For my family, everything that has transpired recently gives us an opportunity to reflect, listen, and reprogram any part of our lives that hasn't been loudly and ferociously anti-racist, and to never let privilege lie dormant when it could be used to stand up for what's right.”
In the wake of social justice protests globally, in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Taylor has been vocal in her support of the campaign, and recently took to Twitter to demand statues of Edward Carmack, a "white supremacist newspaper editor", and Confederate general-turned-Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest be removed from the state of Tennessee.
