Today is Juneteenth. You may not expect what we are next going to write. There will be no pablum decrying slavery and celebrating the end of the civil war and the end of slavery. We understand the holiday, but we do not feel it.
Honestly, we were not aware of the holiday until perhaps a year or two ago. It's importance in African American culture did not permeate our thoughts. So we will not bore you with inspiring words we can write but do not feel. It would be inauthentic and we do not wish to go there.
Instead we do two things: we invite those who do feel this holiday to write about it and we will put some of those comments in this post. Better people who understand this holiday write about it then some well intentioned interloper.
And we pause for a moment to reflect on what we do feel. Dr. King was in Memphis before he was murdered to support a sanitation workers strike. He was planning another march on Washington regarding economic discrimination. We have always felt that was the great unfinished business of his life, and it continues to this day.
What is the opportunity for disadvantaged Americans to make a better life for themselves and their families? That is what we think about on days like today. And we reflect that as the world undergoes changes because of Covid, and as we transition away from young people graduating college to a forty year life of putting on a suit and tie and commuting to an office, perhaps the time for change is upon us. Young people make money from social media by streaming things. They produce videos about travel and food and adventure and people watch and they make money from it. Race or sexual preference or nationality does not seem to factor into this equation. Technology is leading the way to economic opportunity.
The Poor Peoples March on Washington DC did occur, without Dr, King, Led by Ralph Abernathy on June 19, 1968, Juneteenth was given a boast and people who left the march returned home and began their celebration of Juneteenth for the first time, commemorating the order issued by Union General at Galveston, Texas, that the war was over and all slaves were free:
"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."
Please write about Juneteenth. People who read this blog deserve to have words written by those who understand the holiday in way we admittedly never will.
Enjoy the day off.
17 comments:
I do not think Juneteenth was the end of slavery in the USA. Since Lee had surrendered to Grants, 2-3 months prior to Juneteenth, the Civil War was over thus negating any new freeing of sales under the Emancipation Proclamation. Border States like Kentucky and Delaware, being part of the Union ( North) still had Slavery. As part of the Union, those States slaves were NOT freed under the Emancipation proclamation. It wasn’t until December 8, 1865 that the 13th Amendment had the 27 necessary States ratifying the Amendment that it was passed. On December 18, 1865 the 13th Amendment went into effect and Abolished Slavery and Involuntary Servitude EXCEPT for Convicts
I look at Juneteenth as the American equivalent of Emancipation Day, as celebrated in Jamaica. Unfortunately, unlike Jamaica, Emancipation in the United States did not occur on any specific designated day but, instead, but only as the result of a horrible and prolonged, blood-soaked Civil War. The holiday is entirely appropriate, although the modern trend seems to be to ignore the "unseemly" aspects of our country's history. The descendants of the emancipated have earned at least the right to a National Holiday.
Appropriate holiday but inappropriately named. Should be called Emancipation Day. Holidays have become synonymous with crass commercialism and excuses to drink. President's Day is nothing more than our government genuflecting before the sking industry and Florida lobbyists. I wonder what Dr King would think knowing that his name is slowly becoming more associated with 25% off at Walmart and Target than with equality of opportunity.
I recognize the importance of the concept but I feel there are too many holidays
Yes true.
Amazing how messed up Texans really are. It took them 2 years to free the slaves. They refused to join a power grid with other states and look at the freezing blackout they had. They simply can't get their justice system to deliver justice. And now, they blame the mass shooting on the door locks at the school. Maybe they should leave our country and start their own with that idiot Ted Cruz as their leader!
When he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. had lost a lot of his ecumenical and "mainstream" appeal. Because he shifted his advocacy to include matters of segregation beyond the South, economic fairness, class oppression, pacifism, opposition to American foreign policy, he was sidelined and dismissed as some leftist or extremist whose influence had peaked in 1963 and was no longer considered credible or worthy of mainstream attention.
https://www.newsweek.com/martin-luther-king-jr-was-not-always-popular-back-day-780387
The current reverence and hagiography for MLK treats 1963 as the culmination of his life and deletes everything about him after that year save his assassination. He's been made into some kind of racial reconciliation Santa Claus.
https://religiondispatches.org/cornel-west-do-not-santa-clausify-mlk-jr/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-santa-clausifying-dr_b_809951
I agree with 10:20. However, I don't understand how the day morph into the "Juneteenth" name. How did that evolve?
Rump, no comments about the Texas Republican Convention this last weekend? They passed a Resolution to Withdraw from the Union ( USA) and become their own Republic again.
As the saying goes
“ Save your Dixie cups , the South will rise Again”
@ 2:51. You are correct. Death made him a martyr. He was well on his way to becoming Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton. And as for 1963 and "The Speech," it would never have happened without Bayard Rustin, a long forgotten civil rights hero who did more than King ever did for equal opportunity. People interested in truth instead of hagiography should check out the documentary Brother Outsider about Rustin. In fact, I would say that Jackie Robinson endured more bigotry and abuse than King ever did. Dig into the weeds and history is not what popular opinion makes it out to be.
We should have one three day weekend a month. Americans work too hard and we lawyers need a catch-up day regularly.
My comment is other than BBQ and oil Texas is a whole lot more trouble then it’s worth. Let them go become some nation under Jesus Christ where gay and transgender people are prosecuted and everyone walks around with a gun on their hip and no one is vaccinated and everyone takes fing horse medicine for problems and everyone does their own research on all medicine before taking it. Other people can make brisket almost as good. Good bye y’all.
Just as Haitians celebrate January 1 (1804) as Independence Day. But it is rarely talked about because ever since Haiti gained independence, the world has looked down on the country and frowned on the things that it does. The going narrative has been to continue to make life difficult for Haiti, assure it never rises out of Third World status. "Burning of the Plaine du Cap - Massacre of whites by the blacks." On August 22, 1791, slaves set fire to plantations, torched cities and massacred the local white population. Haiti's victory over the Napoleon Bonaparte was unheard of, and some books claim that it was yellow fever that killed the French, not ingenuity from the likes of Haitian rebels, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Toussaint L'Ouverture. Napoleon abandoned his vision of an Empire in the Americas. Decolonization ensued and Louisiana which was being transferred by Spain to France was sold to the US for a song in 1803 as Napoleon became desolate seeing imminent war with England coming.
If you want good brisket go to the Flashback dinner , you can get it with Latkas
"My comment is other than BBQ and oil Texas is a whole lot more trouble then it’s worth."
Unfortunately, as world events have shown us, oil is worth a whole lot of trouble, up to and including ruinous wars. Nigeria may have been happy to let Biafra go, but for the oil. Plenty of Americans would be happy to let Texas go, except that may mean $20.00 per gallon gas and all the attached economic pain that comes with it.
You really are an unreconstructed bigot, Rumpole.
You just consider your bigotry, if you consider it at all, as a virtue, since it is directed at the only the right sort of folks.
Diss is bullshiiiiit.
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