The U.S. Senate on Tuesday, June 15, unanimously passed a resolution establishing June 19 as Juneteenth National Independence Day, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. As far as I’m concerned this is a no-brainer. The emancipation of Black slaves, proclaimed in 1863 and finally enforced everywhere in U.S. territory in 1865 was a signal moment in U.S. history, the culmination of a savage, destructive war that was fought for a variety of reasons but was inextricably linked to America’s inability to live with or without that “Peculiar Institution.”
Nor can we ever seem to shake its legacy.
Juneteenth celebrates the moment on June 19, 1865, when U.S. Army Major General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, the end of slavery in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. It’s an appropriate symbolic date, and has long had cultural resonance. Hell, yes, let’s do it. Pass it through the House and let the President sign it into law.
We can all use a moment of recognition that we can ALL celebrate together as Americans.
Matthew says
Somehow I think this will be used to divide Americans than unite them like we should. We just seem to live in that kind of era.
JimC says
True enough — but we can push against the tide.
lane+batot says
….And we SHOULD push against that tide. How else will anything ever improve, if “ordinary” folks don’t?
Paul+McNamee says
Since this has come to the wider public, the question went out “Who isn’t from Texas and knew about Juneteenth before this?”
I did.
Back in the stone age, 1984. The local PBS radio station’s weekly blues program played an in concert recording of John Hammond (Jr) followed by John Lee Hooker at the Juneteenth Festival. The announcer explained the significance of the day.
I recorded it.
Despite not having a cassette player of any kind at this point, I still have the cassette.
JimC says
Hah! You are on to why I picked the photo I did to accompany the piece. While I’ve been a Civil War and Texas history guy forever, I’m pretty sure my first exposure to Juneteenth was through music as well. In fact, if I’m being honest, I think my first real glimmers of understanding of what it was to be Black in America through the 19th and early 20th centuries came out of music.
Black Tyrone says
Bravo Jim ! Take a stand .
Quixotic Mainer says
Amen! It’s nice to know the oligarchs can get something right once in a while! Juneteenth needs some pop culture exposure, last year I had to explain what it was to a bunch of people after someone hung a banner in town for it. No one had heard the term before. To be fair to them, if I hadn’t been a lifelong ACW nut, I don’t know that anyone would have brought it to my attention either.
Slap says
I bet a lot of “white” Americans would be shocked to find they have slave ancestors, which probably meant that their white male ancestors raped their black female ancestors. That’s part of my family history going back 200 years. How many people who claim to be part Cherokee per family legend are actually part African?
As I told a friend recently, “You can be descended from an old plantation family in two ways. I’m the other one.”