Happy Juneteenth!
I’m deeply in favor of holidays which celebrate freedom. We need more of them.
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is an annual holiday in the United States. Celebrated on June 19, it commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas. The holiday originated in Galveston, Texas; for more than a century, the state of Texas was the primary home of Juneteenth celebrations.
(Photo by MizJellyBean - link to http://flickr.com/photos/mizjellybean/169865555/ no longer works.)
Cool beard on the right.
Do you know that Juneteenth celebrates black freedom in Texas because that is the date on which they found out they were free……but not the date of the emacipation
Can you imagine being so cut off from what is going on that you don’t know that you’re been freed?
There’s actually a great article on it here:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/paulgreenberg/2006/06/19/201660.html
@beri:
Kind of poignant, isn’t it?
There’s a reason it was illegal to teach slaves to read.