The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency has announced that all of its Driver License Examining Offices in the state and all its other public facilities will close Friday in observance of Juneteenth.

The news comes hours after President Joe Biden declared the day a federal holiday to commemorate the day Black slaves in Texas found out they were free more than two years after Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and months after the end of the Civil War.

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“This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take,” Biden said Thursday.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey declared Juneteenth a state holiday immediately after Biden did so federally, and said all state offices will close to observe it except those where it will be essential to maintain personnel.

In a press release distributed locally by Trooper Reginal King, ALEA said they would resume regular operating hours Monday morning.

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