Taylor Swift voiced her support of making Juneteenth a national holiday on Friday and shared that she is giving the day off to all of her employees.
Swift shared a video from The Root on her social media accounts, which discussed the history of Juneteenth and explained why it should be made into a national holiday, CNN reported.
“Personally, I’ve made the decision to give all of my employees June 19th off in honor of Freedom Day from now on, and to continue to educate myself on the history that brought us to this present moment,” Swift wrote on Instagram.
“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,” Swift wrote.
Juneteenth is celebrated each June 19 and commemorates the abolition of slavery in the United States. The holiday has gained more attention this year amid protests taking place around the country over racial injustice.
Although Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or day of observance in 47 states, it has not yet been recognized as a national holiday, according to the Deseret News. However, some companies, including Twitter, Nike and the NFL have chosen to make Juneteenth a paid company holiday this year.
This is not the first time that Swift has spoken out recently about racial injustice, according to People magazine. Last week, Swift called for statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest (a Confederate general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan) and others to be removed from the Tennessee state capitol.
“As a Tennessean, it makes me sick that there are monuments standing in our state that celebrate racist historical figures who did evil things,” Swift wrote on social media, according to People. “Edward Carmack and Nathan Bedford Forrest were DESPICABLE figures in our state history and should be treated as such.”