Juneteenth
The people 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 personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them, become that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.
That's the text of General Order #3 issued by General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865 as he took military control of Texas following the end of the U.S. Civil War. This order essentially enforced the Emancipation Proclamation on the last part of the former Confederacy to come under Union control. This freed the last slaves in the former Confederacy (though slavery was still legal in two of the four "border states" that remained loyal to the United States, a situation rectified by the ratification of the 13th Amendment). June 19th ("Juneteenth") almost immediately became a holiday observed by African-Americans in Texas celebrating the end of their enslavement and has slowly spread in popularity and geographic reach ever since. Newsweek has a primer on the holiday.
I bring this up to note that the U.S. has no official, nationally recognized holiday commemorating the end of slavery. Despite the fact that ending slavery was a major turning point in the country's history and most Americans now recognize it as an overall good thing, there is no celebration of this on a national level, largely because until recently a significant number of white American didn't see ending slavery as a net positive. As I have in the past I'm using Juneteenth to suggest that the U.S. should have such a holiday. The U.S. already has a holiday to celebrate its independence from British rule (July 4), its presidents (third Monday in February), its flag (June 14), two holidays for its military; one for living veterans (November 11) and one for the dead (last Monday in May). Why not a holiday to commemorate "a new birth of freedom" in a nation that supposedly dedicates itself to freedom?
Some suggested dates:
Juneteenth (June 19, or possibly the third Monday in June): A personal favorite due to being the most widespread observance at present and being at a time of year conducive to celebrations. Already a state holiday in Texas.
13th Amendment Day (December 6): This was the date on which the 13th Amendment was ratified. At the time of ratification legal slavery still existed only in Kentucky and Delaware. A terrible date, wedged in between Thanksgiving and Christmas at a time of year already over-heavy with holidays.
Emancipation Day, national version (September 22 / January 1): This was the date on which the Emancipation Proclamation was signed / went into effect. January 1 is already a holiday, New Year's Day, so that's out. September 22 is a possibility though.
Emancipation Day, DC version (April 16): The District of Columbia already observes "Emancipation Day" on the anniversary of the date on which Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act. Another already-existing holiday at a convenient time of year. Advantage: celebrates a jurisdiction ending slavery without bloodshed. Disadvantage: because slaveowners were paid for their human property it implies that they had a legitimate claim to being able to own other human beings as property. Also one day after the traditional filing deadline for federal income tax returns, which I'm not sure counts as an advantage or a disadvantage.
What do you all think?
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Thing of it is Mr. Roof had been baptized and confirmed in a Lutheran Church. About the time he was confirmed, his parents had divorced. It was an ugly divorce from all reports. I have always wondered if a youth minister or the pastor had given the boy emotional support that the whole tragedy could have been prevented.
A moving part of the story is when members of Emmanuel were given the chance to speak to Dylan in the court they all forgave him--and called on him to repent.
With JuneNineteenth there are increased calls for reparations for the black community. The average wealth of a white family in America is around $800,000 (this includes housing and investments minus debt) whereas the wealth of black families is around $100,000. Four of the Democratric candidates have made proposals on how to do his.
All I have to say is it is a tall order.
From the New York Times: It still will be a tall order, but accurately presentation would be beneficial.
Violent manifestations of it are extremely rare. Edwin Corley's superb 'Siege' from 50 years ago remains fiction.
Most of my black friends refuse to recognise this date though, treating it as an ordinary day instead. They argue that the Princess signed the Declaration under pressure, against her wishes. Many people state that it was signed as a compromise, to stave off land reforms. A refusal to recognise a white person as the most important Abolishment hero may also have to do with it.
My friends celebrate 20 November, Black Consciousness Day, with lots of ceremonies, music and dancing. I'm usually involved in these celebrations when I'm in Brazil. It remembers the day Zumbi died, leader of the Quilombo dos Palmares community of escaped slaves in the 17th Century.
That might create the impression that once slavery ended, civil rights followed as a matter of course, but we all know (I hope) that was not so. Martin Luther King was at the height of his activity a hundred years after General Order #3. I believe these events should be commemorated separately.
Freeman Day (August 22): This is the date in 1781 when Elizabeth Freeman, a.k.a. Mum Bett, won a lawsuit freeing her from slavery on the basis that the new (1780) Massachusetts state constitution guaranteed freedom for everyone and that meant everyone. This case was used as a precedent for a later court ruling that effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts in 1783, the first of the original states to do so. Aside from the really cool name which communicates the spirit of the holiday, August is a month largely devoid of holidays on the American calendar.
This may be one of the reasons the end of slavery doesn't have a national holiday. Instead of seeing slavery as a stain on the national character whose removal was an overall good for all Americans it's seen as solely about the "black people" who were slavery's primary victims. I admit that the boon of ending slavery was biggest to the enslaved population, but I wouldn't go so far as to claim that other Americans were completely external to the slave system or that its end wasn't good for them too.
A white guy who: If one is going to supplant back people in the celebration of black people, surely there must be a less problematic white person to use.
Colour me shocked at your suggestion😒
What is wrong with wanting a Black-led celebration of the (quasi-official) end of enslavement of Black people in the US? Why should Black people be like your description of Irish people instead of, say, whomever they want too be?
Whilst I respect standing against oppression, the killing of children makes the case for Turner a little more complicated.
I’m hardly appointing myself anything, just voicing opinion.
In truth, Juneteenth was only the release of slaves in Texas, the last Confederate state to surrender. It is good we remember our history, but does it rise to the level a national holiday? I think not.
As a function of part of the Union, yes.
Indeed, as political means had failed to prevent secession by slave states and the North could not budge from forts in the de facto Confederacy. Disunion over slavery was the ultimate cause and the end of slavery. in reunion, became the cause.
"The problem for Americans who, in the age of Lincoln, wanted slaves to be free was not simply that southerners wanted the opposite, but that they themselves cherished a conflicting value: they wanted the Constitution, which protected slavery, to be honored, and the Union, which had fellowship with slaveholders, to be preserved. Thus they were committed to values that could not logically be reconciled."
David Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 45 - Pulitzer Prize for History
Functional independence from British rule was achieved at different times in different colonies, and yet Americans still seem to be able to settle on a single day (July 4) to celebrate this turning point in their history. I'm not sure why a national holiday celebrating the end of slavery should have to satisfy an arbitrary standard met by very few other American holidays.
1. It will become yet another Shopping Extravaganza Day
2. It will become the day on which public school ends for the academic year, releasing millions of children to "freedom" from school.
Um, I think you have that confused with Columbus' "discovery of America"... which is a public holiday. The March to the Sea has to be ranked as one of the most light-handed invasions/ counter-insurgency operations in history. In most wars, if a hostile army (or, sometimes, even a friendly army) was marching through your land, you were as good as dead, from famine and plague if nothing else.
And the point of commemorating the March to the Sea isn't to glorify Sherman but to irritate the hell out of all the whining neo-Confederate Gone with the Wind fetishists.
The explicit rationale for the rebellion, laid out in the articles of secession of many of the states, was the preservation of slavery. They did not merely regard it as a constitutional issue but as a matter of eternal, divinely ordained principle. This is also laid out clearly in the Confederate VP's "Cornerstone Speech" (the cornerstone being the principle of white supremacy). Any attempt to obfuscate this fact under a question of abstract legalism is abhorrent, Pulitzer Prize or no.
I'm glad you agree.
Yes, I suppose no longer being enslaved would have "an economic impact".
Scorched earth affects the liberated as much as anyone else living in the aftermath. Even if the case for it is stronger than a less destructive path would have been, it does not change the negative effects.
A life-saving amputation might be preferable to death, but it does not mean it is an unmitigated positive.
No! Never. Surely not?
Not throughout the country. Here in southern California the day goes by unmarked. Schools don't close, and I don't know anyone who gets the day off.
Remember, the Emancipation Proclamation only ended slavery in the states that had rebelled against the union. There were still other places that continued to have slavery even until the final state (Georgia) ratified the 14th amendment on December 18, 1865. Slaves still held in Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, New Jersey, Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Washington, D.C., and twelve parishes of Louisiana also became legally free on this date.
This is not the only date of national significance that has been passed over officially. For instance, the Civil War officially ended on August 20, 1865, eighteen months after the surrender of General Lee on April 9, 1964. We have no official celebration of those dates.
Yes, we need to remember June 19th for what it was. But as I pointed out there were still slaves in some parts of the country. Should we ignore those slaves?
Good, it celebrates a holocaust second only to the slave trade and inextricably mixed with it from the start.