President Joe Biden approved legislation that sailed through Congress last week to declare Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday — just in time for its inaugural observation last Friday.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts issued a proclamation last Thursday that closed state offices last Friday, in accordance with a state law that generally gives state employees the same paid holidays as federal employees.

The Nebraska Judicial Branch, however, remained open “due to the number of trials, hearings, testing appointments, and other obligations previously scheduled that day,” the branch said in a news release.

Instead, the state’s Judicial Branch employees will observe Juneteenth at various times later this year.

The decree by Chief Justice Michael G. Heavican also meant that the state’s district courts, county courts and probation offices remained open.

Nearly all states had recognized Juneteenth in some fashion, at least on paper. But most have been slow to move beyond proclamations issued by governors or resolutions passed by lawmakers.

The effort recalled the drawn-out battles over recognizing Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the last time the federal government designated a new holiday. That legislation, finally passed in 1983, scheduled the holiday to begin three years later. It set off bitter debates in the states over whether to enact their own holidays.

Many states, including Nebraska, have laws with provisions that automatically recognize all federal holidays — even those not named in state statute.

Juneteenth commemorates the events of June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas — some 2½ years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had freed slaves in Southern states.

“This day doesn’t just celebrate the past. It calls for action today,” Biden said before he established Juneteenth National Independence Day.

Ricketts encouraged Nebraskans to learn more about the holiday and the state’s first recognized Underground Railroad site, Mayhew Cabin in Nebraska City.

“Juneteenth is an occasion for all Americans to give thanks for the blessings of independence and freedom before the law,” Ricketts said in a statement Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.