Juneteenth, it’s a funny name for a holiday, celebrating a day in June of 1865 when the institution of slavery was declared to be officially illegal in the remotest parts of the Confederate South after the bloody civil war. The war was over, and the final decommissioning of Human bondage without cause here in the United States, which should never have been necessary, took place in a historically interesting way.
Union Major General Gordan Granger with 2,000 federal troops ended slavery in Texas by proclamation of General Order 3. He had a job to do, and he was following orders. His mission was to ensure a peaceful transition. He and his men marched through Galveston reading the official decree out loud.
The announcement reads as follows: “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 personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly 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.”
“…an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property….”
Thus was the moral, the ethical, the absolutely essential and inevitable reaffirmed and declared. Yet, some black-hearted obstructionist, even to this day, find reason to argue and to equivocate about the enforcement of this sacred law.
June nineteenth will come again in 364 days, and on that day, let’s all come together and share in a grand and glorious Jubilee.
The 13th Amendment was ratified December 6, 1865, two and a half score and eight years late and after some 655,000 dead.
To further Liberty, let’s abolish subsidies and emancipate taxpayers. Repeal the 16th amendment too.
While doing research on Juneteenth, I came across these other interesting facts:
Freed people pooled their funds to purchase land to hold their Juneteenth celebrations, because in some cities, black people were barred by Democrats from using public parks.
The day was celebrated in Austin in 1867 and it was listed on a “calendar of public events” by 1872. That year, black leaders in Texas raised $1,000 for the purchase of 10 acres of land to celebrate Juneteenth, today known as Emancipation Park. The observation was soon drawing thousands of attendees across Texas; an estimated 30,000 black people celebrated at Booker T. Washington Park in Limestone County, Texas.
In 1981 three officials, two white and one black, arrested three black teenagers for smoking pot during the celebration. The boys were handcuffed and quickly loaded on a small boat, way too small. The boat sank 40 yards from shore. The three men swam ashore and the three boys drowned.
The scene was roped off from angry blacks. The handcuffs were surreptitiously removed. Just an unfortunate boating accident I guess.