The facts about Juneteenth

Leftist liberal activists and black voters will never recognize the contributions of Republicans to this day or  their emancipation 

It seems Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, are trying to join hands over the bipartisan approval in Congress  over adoption of a new federal holiday, Juneteenth  (essentially, June 19 of each year).  It’s a day off for federal workers, but each state and business will decide for themselves. 

But there’s a lot of misinformation about what Juneteenth is.  I have seen statements in the media and social media like  “the day slaves won their freedom” to “the day they learned of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas.”

Wikipedia says:  

“Juneteenth’s commemoration is on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865, announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming and enforcing freedom of enslaved people in Texas, which was the last state of the Confederacy with institutional slavery.

President Abraham Lincoln‘s Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 had officially outlawed slavery in Texas and in all of the other states of the original Confederacy. Enforcement of the Proclamation generally relied upon the advance of Union troops. Texas, as the most remote state of the former Confederacy, had seen an expansion of slavery and had a low presence of Union troops as the American Civil War ended; thus, enforcement there had been slow and inconsistent prior to Granger’s announcement. 

…Emancipation came at different times to various places in the Southern United States. Celebrations of emancipation, often called Jubilees (recalling the biblical Jubilee in which slaves were freed) occurred on September 22, July 4, August 1, April 6, and November 1, among other dates. In Texas, emancipation came late: enforced in Texas on June 19, 1865, as the southern rebellion collapsed, emancipation became a well-known cause of celebration. 

Although this event has come to be celebrated as the end of slavery, emancipation for the remaining enslaved in two Union border states (Delaware and Kentucky), would not come until several months later, on December 18, 1865, when ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment was announced.”

For freed blacks, Juneteenth, not the date of the 13^th amendment or  Emancipation Proclamation, became the day to celebrate freedom, often with picnics and fireworks.  Texas’ governor issued a proclamation in 1938 honoring Juneteenth “and do urge all members of the Negro race in Texas to observe the day in a manner appropriate to its importance to them.”  It became an official state holiday in 1980 and states including Virginia made it state holidays within the last two years. 

All but 14 Republicans in Congress supported the bill Biden signed last Thursday, and that was duly noted by the anti-Republican media.  

However, Republican Party, not the Democrats were principally responsible for abolishing slavery.  The GOP was founded in 1854 by  opponents of the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential expansion of slavery into the western territories.

Until the New Deal era, most blacks (who could vote) voted for “The Party of Lincoln.” Republican votes in Congress were critical in passing civil rights and voting rights legislation in the 1960s since Southern Democrats in Congress opposed,  Ronald Reagan, a Republican signed the law creating the Martin Luther King Holiday.  Trump’s economy, prior to COVID, led to the lowest unemployment rate among blacks, Latinos and women since 1969.  

But today’s black activists and politicians care nothing about Republican contributions, including their support for Juneteenth.  They are so in bed with the Democratic Party as the Democrats are a party of grievance groups and support government handouts as a means of controlling the populace.  Conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza has equated the slums and public housing projects with the plantations of old.

The black leaders and Black Lives Matter  (BLM) faction want to shove critical race theory “equity and inclusion” training down our throats and make whites in particular perpetually guilty and liable for  past injustices to blacks.

My guess is that given the racial divide caused by Barack Obama, Al Sharpton and today’s BLM activists, Juneteenth is going to be a holiday only for the woke, and Republicans if they choose to celebrate will be put at the kiddie table, like at Thanksgiving.  Not one Republican member of congress was behind President Biden when he signed the Juneteenth holiday bill.

When I lived in Leesburg, and served 10 years there in elected office,  I was a member of the Loudoun NAACP and attended their annual “Freedom Dinner” and marched with my kids in the MLK Day Parades.  I also helped the NAACP with some publicity for their efforts.

Indeed, Republicans attended these events to just show the flag, but in recent years were not very welcomed.  The NAACP of Loudoun was taken over by two rabid bigots, Phillip Thompson and Michelle Thomas, who looked at any conservative as a white supremacist or Klansman without the robes.  

By all means, we should celebrate this new holiday, and not denigrate it. However, Republicans should expect no thanks or credit from the Leftist so-called “leaders” of America’s black community for the time being.

And, no holiday, government handout, CRT-classes or tearing down statues of Confederates or renaming buildings and schools is going to any good for the black underclass in America’s cities and rural areas, who continue to vote in their Democrat politician slave masters over and over again.