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On the federal holiday of Juneteenth, President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden delivered contrasting messages on Thursday that underscored a broader cultural and political divide over how the nation commemorates its past.

Speaking at Reedy Chapel AME Church in Galveston—where Union Army orders were first read on June 19, 1865, declaring freedom for enslaved people in Texas—Biden used his remarks to celebrate historical truth and caution against what he called “ongoing efforts to erase history.”

“The events of Juneteenth are of monumental importance to America’s story,” Biden told the congregation on Thursday. “Still today, some say to me and you that this doesn't deserve to be a federal holiday. They don't want to remember...the moral stain of slavery.”

Without mentioning President Trump by name, Biden appeared to take direct aim at his administration’s approach to education and historical memory.

“Darkness can hide much but can erase nothing,” he said, drawing laughter when he referred to “this guy” before making the sign of the cross.

He also criticized moves to restore Confederate names to US military bases—a reversal of Biden-era renaming efforts. “What are we doing now? Reinstating those names,” he said.

Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law in 2021, making June 19 the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

On Thursday, Galveston Mayor Craig Brown presented Biden with a plaque and declared: “I still consider our special guest, President Joe Biden, as my president.”

- 'Nobody had ever heard of it'

Meanwhile, President Trump commemorated the day by criticizing the rise in federal holidays, saying they burden the economy.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” he wrote on Truth Social. “It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

At a White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that President Trump had no plans to issue a proclamation observing Juneteenth. “We are certainly here, we’re working 24/7 right now,” she told reporters.

Though Trump has previously claimed credit for popularizing Juneteenth, saying in 2020, “nobody had ever heard of it,” he did not move to make it a federal holiday while in office.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and announced the end of slavery—more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

The date remains the oldest regular US observance of the end of slavery.