Posted on 06/19/2024 5:08:13 AM PDT by DoodleBob
This Wednesday, America will celebrate Juneteenth as a federal holiday for the fourth time. Yet the holiday, born out of bipartisanship, is becoming more divisive each year.
The Left has co-opted Juneteenth to push for radical racial policies such as reparations and exclude most Americans from its celebration. As a result, many conservatives now oppose the federal holiday.
But in the eyes of this Texas historian, it’s a mistake to abandon a unifying national holiday to the manipulations of the Left. We should instead do what conservatives are best at: Get back to the roots.
Until the past four years, Juneteenth was an uncontroversial celebration of American freedom and the end of slavery in Texas. The holiday commemorates the day Union Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in Galveston, informing Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the state’s slaves, and marking the end of slavery under the Confederacy.
The next year, in 1866, residents of Galveston began celebrating “Jubilee Day,” which eventually became what we know as Juneteenth. In 1979, Al Edwards, a Democratic state representative from Houston, sponsored legislation to make Juneteenth a paid state holiday. Texas Gov. Bill Clements, a Republican, signed the bill into law, and the holiday was born.
The national acceptance of Juneteenth also began in a bipartisan fashion. President Donald Trump was the first president to call for its adoption as a federal holiday in 2020, although it took a year for Congress to act. When it did, the bill passed the Senate with unanimous consent and 415-14 in the House.
With that kind of history, one would expect conservatives, even those wary of the pitfalls of identity politics like me, to embrace Juneteenth’s consistency with the principles enshrined in our founding documents.
The holiday celebrates what President Abraham Lincoln called “a new birth of freedom” for America. It celebrates the completion of the work of July 4, 1776—the extension of liberty to all Americans. It also commemorates the untold numbers of young men who died in the war fighting for that freedom.
If it’s good enough for Texas, why are some conservatives beginning to oppose the holiday?
Unfortunately, the answer lies mostly on the left.
The Left has worked hard to co-opt the holiday and use it as a tool to divide their countrymen and to replace the real Independence Day. It began on the first federal Juneteenth, when Democratic leaders tied the 156-year-old holiday to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Then, the Left named the national holiday “Juneteenth National Independence Day,” setting it up in opposition to July 4.
What was once a broadly accepted state holiday celebrating a significant moment in Texas history became a pawn in the national game of identity politics and subject to the division of the 24-hour news cycle.
The Guardian published a story calling Juneteenth “the real Independence Day”—a slap in the face to both our Founders and all Americans who celebrate July 4. Activists have called for Juneteenth to be used to explore “racial trauma” and enact reparations.
Under these circumstances, it is no surprise that Americans are souring on Juneteenth. What they hear from the media and elected leaders on Juneteenth is a self-righteous, anti-American drumbeat of criticism and division. Most Americans are excluded from the celebration, as is anyone who believes in America’s founding or doesn’t buy the narrative that America is “systemically racist” today.
But it’s not too late to save the holiday from those who would abuse it. Here’s one way: Celebrate it as the first day of a two-week national celebration of independence and freedom, stretching from June 19 to July 4.
We should remember the wars in which Americans fought and died to defend our shared heritage of liberty and expand it to all Americans. We should commemorate the armies of young patriots—black and white—who fought wars against tyrannical elites, whether it was the English crown or the plantation owner. We should consider how elites today are trying to take away the very freedoms that were secured on June 19 and July 4 through the blood of our forefathers and work with our neighbors to protect our liberties.
That’s the true spirit of Juneteenth. It’s a day of building up our country, not tearing it down. We have an opportunity to reject racial divisions and the revisionist history of the ivory tower.
It’s long past time conservatives start reclaiming our institutions—let’s start this June 19.
Originally published by Blaze Media
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to CBS’ Margaret Brennan on Sunday (June 5, 2020) to discuss the riots.
Brennan tried to get Rice to admit that the Trump Administration’s failure to contain the lawlessness here is signaling weakness abroad and putting the U.S. in danger.
“Madam Secretary, you know, some of America’s adversaries, Russia, Iran, China, they are using the images of what happened to Mr. Floyd and what is happening in the streets of American cities right now in their own state propaganda. Do you see this racial divide as a national security threat to us?” Brennan asked.
Rather than providing the desired response, Rice replied: (emphasis mine)
Well, I’ve always thought that America’s greatest strength is that we are a country where you can come from humble circumstances and do great things, and where, despite our painful history, we’ve worked harder and harder every day, brick by brick, to build a more perfect union for all of us. And I would say to those, particularly in places like China and Russia and Iran, who may want to use this for propaganda, let’s not be absurd.
This is not Tiananmen Square where you’ve mowed down people who disagreed with the government. This is not the invasion of Crimea where you took land from your neighbor. This is not the Green Revolution in Iran where you killed people wantonly because they wouldn’t agree with the theocratic government.
Rice continued, “And I would even say to our friends abroad, in places like Europe, where I’m seeing demonstrations in support of what is happening here, thank you for your support, but please look in the mirror. Please ask yourself, in countries in Europe and countries all across the world, what are you doing about racial and ethnic inequality in your own circumstances? America has gotten better because we have been willing to confront our problems. And we’re going to confront our problems again. We’re confronting them now.
“But I really don’t need to be lectured by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping about peaceful protest when they have themselves used their own force just because people wanted to criticize the government. That is not what is happening here,” she added.
These people spit on July 4 but they demand that we worship Juneteenth.
you DO mean true meaninglessness...right?
That's curious. I'm of the opinion that conservatives are best at capitulating to the enemy. Not unlike WW2 era Jews in Nazi Germany.
Another taxpayer funded federal holiday/excuse for rioting? But it makes for a good opportunity to grovel-for-votes I suppose.
Juneteenth was brought to you by Republicans, despite the best efforts of Democrats.
Juneteenth is a joke. The USA is becoming like African Countries with up to 19 holidays and they are all insolvent. The lost tax revenue and interruption of production amounts to billions of dollars of losses without the American people knowing it and celebrates nothing.
It is meaningful to blacks. It should have stayed with the black community, because the left will ruin it.
The deeper point missed by all is that the Texas Republican Party was in that era founded by blacks in Texas.
Republicans are the only true advocates of black rights. Democrats have demonized black people for decades and launched an anti constitutional war to refuse those rights.
It only became a holiday because Trump haters saw he had scheduled a rally on it. Even though Juneteenth was unknown outside of Texas.
Of course the government is going to give us a holiday set every 4 - 5 months to create division. Please provide me the names of other countries that work as hard as the US to divide the population.
I was greatly disappointed to see the local sanitation department come around this morning and pick up the trash as they usually do on Wednesdays.
Seeing as how “Juneteenth” is definitely a garbage holiday if there ever was one, I figured the trashmen would have the day off.
Re “Juneteenth”: If we ignore it, maybe it will go away.
The name of the holiday is incomprehensible.
Juneteenth is the celebration of persons shooting each other at Summer community events. Concentrated into one bulletfest, it takes the pressure off of thugs to shoot each other on the 4th of July and random weekends. And, no one else but the thugs and their entourage seems to be allowed to attend these events, at least in my City, so it is a positive holiday.
Actually, what happens in America is the work that would be done today gets spread like peanut butter across the rest of the workdays. Many businesses remain open.
If you were right, economic statistics for the past 4 Junes would be down. I haven’t seen this indeed, the unemployment rate in 2023 improved.
Remember that it’s also National Martini Day. Celebrate.
It’s a portmanteau.
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