When Aaron Hinton walked through the housing project in Brownsville on a recent summer afternoon, he voiced love and pride for this tightknit, but troubled working-class neighborhood in New York City where he grew up.

He pointed to a community garden, the lush plots of vegetables and flowers tended by volunteers, and to the library where he has led after-school programs for kids.

But he also expressed deep rage and sorrow over the scars left by the nation's 50-year-long War on Drugs. "What good is it doing for us?" Hinton asked.

A growing number of companies such as Nike, JCPenney and Target are embracing Juneteenth as a holiday.

Their efforts are happening alongside a push to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Juneteenth, or June 19, 1865, is the day slaves in Texas learned of their freedom. President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, freeing those in bondage in the rebellious slave-holding states, but it wasn't until 1865 that Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger of the Union Army landed in Galveston, Texas, and delivered the news that the Civil War had ended.

The Senate unanimously approved a bill Tuesday that would make Juneteenth, the date commemorating the end of chattel slavery in the United States, a legal public holiday.

The holiday is celebrated on June 19, and it began in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were freed under the Emancipation Proclamation.

President Abraham Lincoln had signed the proclamation outlawing slavery in most of the United States years earlier, but it was not until 1865 that those in bondage in Texas were freed.