Make Juneteenth a national holiday now (opinion)

CNN ^ | June 13, 2020 | Peniel Joseph

[C19fan]

Juneteenth, the annual commemoration of emancipation that has been celebrated in the African American community since June 19, 1865, should be a national federal holiday. On that day, in Galveston, Texas, a military officer informed African Americans that they had secured their freedom, more than two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring "all persons held as slaves" in the rebelling Confederate states to be free.

[FatherofFive]

The Emancipation Proclamation took effect (such effect as it had) on January 1. So it already is a holiday.

That solves it, then. Celebrate the New Year AND freeing the Slaves! Happy New Year!

[slouper]

Juneteenth is a Texas thing, has nothing to do with the end of slavery in the rest of the states.

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't know how long black people in Texas have celebrated June 19th but I think it is only in recent years that people outside of Texas have heard of the celebration--and most people probably heard of it for the first time in 2020.

The Emancipation Proclamation is the reason the black people in Texas ceased to be slaves once the federal government regained control of Texas. So they should celebrated the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and make that a holiday.

The Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, 1863. So make January 1st a holiday.

[Verginius Rufus]

The war wasn't quite over when Lee surrendered, but nearly so--the other Confederate commanders surrendered soon afterwards.

I ran across a lawsuit in Mississippi involving a man who was the first person in his area to learn about Lee's surrender. He had gone to a store and bought something with Confederate money. The lawsuit resulted from the fact that the storekeeper would not have accepted the money had he known about Lee's surrender.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Funny. Never heard of this until this past week. Now that I know it I’ll ignore it.