Since it became a federal holiday in 2021, scores of companies have joined the likes of Target, Best Buy, Capital One and others who already gave employees paid time off to observe Juneteenth as a holiday.
Now, more than 800 companies around the country observe Juneteenth as a paid day off. In addition to the time off, many companies celebrate Juneteenth in a variety of ways. Some of those ways, however, can be seen as performative or even insulting if not done in an appropriate manner.
There have been numerous examples of this in the last few years. IKEA, for example, had to roll back and apologize for a Juneteenth themed lunch menu at its Atlanta location that included fried chicken, watermelon, mac ‘n’ cheese, potato salad, collard greens, candied yams as a “tribute to the perseverance of African Americans.”
