JUNETEENTH OFFICIALLY A HOLIDAY
Juneteenth is officially a holiday thanks to the Biden administration and its swift move to seal the deal Thursday. Biden calling it long overdue.
Yeah, about a 155 years long over due. The White House was quick to pass it into legislation hoping within hours to shutdown the government making it official on Friday.
We know all too well the checkered history of America, but what exactly does Juneteenth represent?
WHAT DOES JUNETEENTH REPRESENT?
It represents the day slaves were emancipated in Galveston, Texas in 1865.
It’s also known as Jubilee Day and has been celebrated ever since.
However only today, this day of June 19th 2021 is it now officially a recognized holiday for the nation.
Jubilee Day was organized by freed men who began the celebratory ceremony in 1866.
Biden signed it into law calling it Juneteenth National Independence Day appropriately so.
It commemorates the day slaves were finally told of President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation which had been enacted on January 1st 1863.
However many people were still enslaved until this day of June 19th, 1866.
For two years Union troops traveled throughout the southern United States to inform all the former slaves of Lincoln’s executive order.
On December 6th, 1865 the 13th Amendment was ratified making slavery illegal throughout the U.S. “except as a punishment for crime.”
STILL A LONG WAY TO GO EVEN AFTER JUNETEENTH IS DESIGNATED A HOLIDAY
Even after emancipation equality has been hard to come by for Blacks across the nation. It wasn’t just assumed that because you were now free you were equal. No. Quite the contrary. The supremacy of those in power and need to keep Blacks down has prevailed for hundreds of years and in some parts of the country that prevalence has hardly diminished.
There were countless freedom riders who continued decades later for equal rights. The efforts of so many will never be undermined. The irony here is the world is slow to come around. And really in the greater scheme of things it’s actually not been that long at all. Only a 155 years ago was it legal to own slaves. That just seems so preposterous to even think about today. How primitive a nation to have less than two hundred years ago allowed humans to be herded as cattle essentially, owned and enslaved.
Leaders from the civil rights movement everyone should know – we break that down for you here.
CIVIL UNREST AND RACISM VERY MUCH ALIVE IN THE U.S. STILL
Young nations like young people take time to develop. This is in no way excuses the outlandish racism that continues to fester deep in the heart of America. However it speaks volumes to its level of ignorance and naïveté. America is a young country full of a lot of people who aren’t very cultured and who have been fed a series of lies from the inception, throughout grade school and many of them choose rather than to evolve, grow, learn and expand their awareness, but to perpetuate the falsehoods.
It’s a wonder most children in public schools across the country are still taught that Christoper Columbus discovered America. Non-sense.
It shouldn’t still be so prevalent, but acknowledging the slow progress is a necessary step in the advancement of this young and at times very ignorant – United States Of America.
Now let’s celebrate – Juneteenth and honor the profundity of this day.
