Free Republic

Two ceremonial flags were filched from a Northampton Township community flagpole on Wednesday night. Palmer Township police are searching for the person who stole Juneteenth and LGBTQ Pride flags from a flagpole outside the Easton Area Public Library Palmer branch overnight Wednesday. Surveillance footage captured an individual lowering the two flags and fleeing the scene. Police said the thief deliberately concealed their identity. “This was not just vandalism; it was an attack on our shared civic space. The township condemns this theft in the strongest terms,” it shared in a news release. The flags had been raised during a ceremony...

At least 27 people were shot, five of them fatally, Friday into Saturday evening in gun-controlled Chicago, Illinois.Breitbart News noted at least 13 people were injured in a drive-by shooting Friday night around 11 p.m. The shooting occurred in the Princeton Park neighborhood, WLS reported police believe two shooters inside a red SUV opened fire simultaneously on a crowd of people.None of the 13 wounded persons suffered a fatality.The Chicago Sun-Times pointed to fatal drive-by that occurred at 5:15 Friday “in the 11900 block of South Michigan Avenue.” A 29-year-old was standing on the sidewalk when was shot numerous times...

Freedom in the United States has always arrived in stages, declared in one space and denied or delayed in another. Such was the reality for formerly enslaved Texans who learned of their emancipation in 1865, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation and the same year he issued his “40 acres and a mule” promise. Indeed, Juneteenth is as old as the call for reparations. Flashforward to 2021, and the bill that established Juneteenth as a national holiday and H.R. 40, the proposal to establish a commission to study reparations, reached Congress. The former...

While many refer to June 19th as Juneteenth, it is also widely known as Jubilee Day in Southern states. Jubilee refers to an Old Testament celebration instituted in Leviticus 25 to occur every 50 years. The year began on the Day of Atonement when the priests blew the shofar (a ram’s horn). In the Year of Jubilee, God required the Israelites to forgive each other’s debts, return land to its original owners or families, and let the land rest. Israelite bond servants could buy their freedom from foreign masters in the land. The year was a reminder that God brought...

It’s abundantly clear that religion stood at the center of the Civil War for both sides. Both North and South looked to God for meaning, and each side believed—that God was on its side... The new Confederate Constitution, adopted on February 8, 1861, officially declared its Christian identity, “invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God.” Southern leaders chose as their national motto Deo Vindice (“God will avenge”.) Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that the time had come “to recognize our dependence upon God … and supplicate his merciful protection.” This national acknowledgment of religious dependence, as the South frequently...

Many Americans will have the day off on Friday, June 19, to celebrate Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery. While most stores will remain open, some services will be unavailable. The stock market and most banks will be closed on Friday. While many stores will remain open, make sure to check local store hours as they may vary by location. Also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved people that the Civil War had ended and they were free. Read on...

CBS Television Studios has been sued by a writer on Matlock, who accuses the show’s top brass of directing disparaging sexual and racist comments at him and other Black cast and crew members. The writer, John Lowe, alleges in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in California state court that Matlock‘s showrunner and executive producers created a hostile work environment “permeated by sexually explicit and discriminatory conduct.” He was terminated after allegedly reporting an incident in which his supervisor referred to Juneteenth as “Coonteenth.”

Families in a New Jersey school district were left outraged after a cafeteria menu distributed for June displayed a watermelon graphic on Juneteenth — prompting school officials to condemn the image as racially offensive and demand immediate action from the district’s food-service contractor. Montclair Public Schools said the image appeared on a June cafeteria menu prepared by food-service provider Sodexo and sparked complaints from students, families, staff and community members. Superintendent Ruth Turner said those who saw the menu were “hurt, disappointed, and offended” by the graphic’s appearance alongside the June 19 holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the...

One person was killed and multiple others were injured in a mass shooting during a Juneteenth celebration at a VFW in South Carolina Saturday night, according to officials. The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office led a massive police response at the Veterans of Foreign Wars facility, outside of Greenville, where bullets flew Saturday before 11 p.m., WSPA reported. The VFW 1790 was hosting a Juneteenth celebration at the time of the shooting, Anderson County Sheriff’s deputies told the outlet.

Too many non-working holidays are costing the United States “BILLIONS OF DOLLARS” and hindering the country from success, President Donald Trump exclaimed on Thursday. Trump posted to his Truth Social account against non-working holidays, suggesting that neither employers nor employees liked them and that the United States was on track to make every day a non-working holiday. The president posted the message on Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of slaves in the United States. “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed. The workers don’t...

OKLAHOMA CITY — As Juneteenth celebrations begin in Oklahoma City, a rally on Thursday morning focused on using the holiday to advocate for undocumented immigrants. "We know as the African American community that freedom is not always free,” said CJ Webber-Neal, founder of the Neal Center for Justice

Emancipation Day may have run afoul of anti-woke sentiment.Is Juneteenth being swallowed up – and swept away – by the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement? The nation’s newest federal holiday was meant to be a celebration of the end of slavery in America. It was never an LGBTQ holiday or general celebration of “marginalized communities.” Yet it seems some are trying to co-opt it – or culturally appropriate it, one might say – into the broader movement. As the tide of public and political opinion turns against DEI, however, will Juneteenth find itself washed away as well?The Political History...

OAKLAND, Calif. - Oakland city officials say they're prepared for the Juneteenth celebration Thursday after sideshows and a wild shootout marred last year's festivities. "We're certainly not looking for a repeat of activity. We're far more prepared this year than last year," said City Administrator Justin Johnson.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth, which commemorates the last group of Freed Slaves to learn of the Emancipation Proclamation. It's also the Anniversary of my "leaving that other site (GOP/USA)" because I had dubbed Obama "The Lyin' King". The rather stodgy GOPe site was annoyed that I was "disrespecting the office of the President". I also expressd distrust of Mitt Romney, and was castigated for that. I will not stay where I'm not welcome. And so, I signed up with FR, and chose the name "Left That Other Site". Some folks think that the site I left was DU, but, no, it...

After significant funding cuts jeopardized the future of the Southern Colorado Juneteenth Festival (SCJF), organizers say the event is moving forward this year with a new location, thanks to community support. Juneteenth is a national holiday – held on June 19 – that commemorates the official emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the U.S. For the past four years, it's been celebrated in Colorado Springs with a festival held at America the Beautiful Park. The event is hosted by OneBodyEnt., a local nonprofit dedicated to serving youth and adults by helping prevent criminal offenses and re-offenses. But after the event's...

I was reading over the Executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and saw this section: Sec. 5. Additional Action. The Secretary of Interior may solicit public and intergovernmental input regarding additional patriots to honor, particularly in light of America’s semiquincentennial celebration, and shall recommend action to me, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. So my question is...what else can we recommend to be renamed? I think we've become so used to having the left rename things with little to no blowback that we think it's not important. But it is. Remember...

The process began when celebration of Washington’s Birthday moved to the third Monday in February. Around the same time, many states dropped their February celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Local governments have paired or replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day. The most recent calendar change is the addition of Juneteenth

Public transactions on the Venmo page of Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, show payments on Juneteenth spread across four of the last six years. The daughter of a well-known Congresswoman seemingly accepted “reparation” payments from her white friends for years, according to a report from the Washington Free Beacon. Public transactions on the Venmo page of Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, show payments on Juneteenth spread across four of the last six years. Captions to the currency exchange include “reparations” and “Happy Juneteenth. It’s unclear how much money was sent as “reparations.”...

Two people were killed, and fourteen were injured in the Juneteenth festival shooting, per police reports by the Round Rock Police Department.