Juneteenth, the day some people including most black folks want to make a national holiday to celebrate the end of slavery in America.
Compare that to the fourth of July. The English Colonists could get up in the morning and do whatever they wanted to do that was legal. They could complain and demonstrate against the way the King was treating them. They had their little rebellions and then the big Revolutionary War. Meanwhile the slaves in America got up and went to work in the fields where every move was overseen by the master. The slave whose most precious thing in his drab world was his wife and two children who maybe tomorrow were sold and he never saw them again, but he knew they were out there where he could not go look for them.
Slavery, as old as the history of the world, a blight on many civilizations, especially in that enlightened era of America. The whole world watched, more than we may think, the birth of the United States and what they would do about their slavery question. They didn’t do anything. They couldn’t make a Union if the slavery issue were to be addressed, so they ignored it.
It festered for some seventy years and came to a head in one of the stupidest and bloodiest wars and finally the horrors of slavery were over. Those black people, who were slaves because they were born black and their ancestors were captured by black people and sold to the horrible slave ships, were free. It has taken a long time, and still taking time, to get over it. The history of American slavery ought to be preserved in every way and taught diligently to every student and never forgotten nor corrupted into bad behavior.
Should Juneteenth be a national holiday? Has America been the light to the world where every man is born free and treated equally before the law? Have we repented of our sin of slavery? Is that repentance important enough to have one day a year to remember that every man in America is free?
This is not an endorsement of the current mob behavior and destruction of property and historic monuments by a few people who are not aware of the true blessings of America and are missing the point of preserving our precious history.
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