Walmart has pulled its Juneteenth-themed ice cream and issued an apology after social media backlash last week over accusations that the mega retailer was commercializing a federal holiday meant to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.
Walmart pulled the ice cream, which was set to be "swirled red velvet and cheesecake" ice cream in a Pan-African colored tub that featured an image of two black hands high-fiving.
“Share and celebrate African American culture, emancipation and enduring hope,” the label read, according to The Washington Post.
The product, however, would be pulled from freezers after it received online condemnation.
In a statement to Fox News, Walmart said: "Juneteenth holiday marks a celebration of freedom and independence. However, we received feedback that a few items caused concern for some of our customers and we sincerely apologize."
Juneteenth is a new federal holiday that marks the anniversary of the release of slaves in Texas two years after the close of the Civil War.
The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves from slave states, but the law went unenforced with many slavers moving operations to Texas to continue their businesses.
The Union army took control of Texas in June 1865 and outlawed the practice.
Last year, President Biden signed an act designating June 19 as the Juneteenth National Independence Day. He said that Juneteenth "marks both a long hard night of slavery and subjugation and a promise for a brighter morning to come."
President Biden says Juneteenth is "a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain and the terrible toll that slavery took on the country—and continues to take." pic.twitter.com/94rSOkCk5u
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 17, 2021
He called it a "day of profound weight and profound power," and said that the passage of the Act makes us "remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take," calling slavery "America's original sin."
He called the creation of a second independence day "one of the greatest honors" he "will have had as President."
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