Juneteenth

[browngirl]

Incidentally, today is Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the Emancipation of the slaves.

*contemplates being free*

{Edit: my friend lyonesse said something really nifty about the day.]

Comments

[camwyn]

For some reason I had thought that was a few days earlier in the month... ah, well. It's a good day.

[cellio]

Happy Juneteenth!

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

yay, Juneteenth! It would be great if there was a more public way of celebrating the holiday. The web site doesn't really help much, but at least the stamp campaign would be a good start.

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure out how to write something about Juneteenth and how important it is that this country recognize it, since the cancer of race-based chattel slavery still affects our country to this day. (Though, Gods willing, less and less every year.) We were the only nation to have race-based chattel slavery for any period of time, and it's poisoned American race relations in a way you just don't see in any other nation. But I'm a white girl who wasn't even born in this country, and I don't want to come across as smug and self-righteous.

How excellent it is that America finally recognized Blacks as free citizens, and how shameful it is that she hid that truth from herself for so long.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Happy Juneteenth! :-)

Will you be doing anything in particular to celebrate it?

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Wow. Good website.

I didn't even /know/ about Juneteenth, so thank you.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

*contemplates being free*

Sheesh. I thought the point of emancipation was so your labor was not free, but for pay. [g,d,rlh]

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Juneteenth! Hey, yeah, it is! Cool.

There's probably a big party a few blocks from me, then. Dunno if I'll get up the energy to go, but happy Juneteenth to you and yours!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

It's the celebration of the complete emancipation. It's the day that (2.5 years after the slavery was ended) that someone showed up in Texas and told the slaves that the war has been over for a while and they should have been freed January first, 2.5 years ago.

My favorite radio program (The Tavis Smiley Show (http://discover.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.jhtml?prgDate=06/19/2003&prgId=14)) gave a great explanation of it, and interviewed the guy that wrote the law making it a state holiday in Texas. (You can listen to it via the link, its pretty short).

Later in that show he had the show's tech commentator Omar Wasow (of Blackplanet.com) talking about Instant Messaging. He started out explaining that if they had IM in the 1800's the slaves wouldn't have had to wait 2.5 years to find out that they were free. *giggle*