Happy Juneteenth!

[bobabode]

Happy Juneteenth!

One hundred and fifty-seven years ago, at the tail end of the United States’ great civil conflict — and the geographical tail end of the Confederacy — Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger led 2,000 soldiers into Galveston, Tex., where a third of the population still lived in slavery more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was supposed to have taken effect. He issued the following general order, which was read out at several locations by federal troops:

“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.”

This good news wasn’t really news to many of the people in Galveston; word does get around when big things are afoot. In this case, the word made manifest on June 19 was “jubilee” (derived from an ancient Hebrew term for a day when, among other things, slaves could be set free). Juneteenth, as it came to be known, turned into an annual day of celebration for African Americans in Texas and then in other parts of the country. In recent decades, nearly every state has given it some form of recognition. Last year, it became a federal holiday for the first time. WP

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...tion-struggle/