The Raiders have long been one of the NFL’s pioneers in terms of diversity, and now they’re among the teams celebrating Juneteenth this week.
According to Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Raiders are closing their offices and giving employees a paid day off Friday.
That pushes the number of individual teams marking the occasion to 20, with more expected. The league office announced last week it would close in honor of the day that celebrates the emancipation of the enslaved after the Civil War.
Late Raiders owner Al Davis was long a champion of equality, hiring the NFL’s first black head coach in the modern era (Art Shell) along with the league’s first Hispanic coach (Tom Flores), and the league’s first female CEO (Amy Trask).