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A law is only as good as one’s ability to enforce it. And when President Lincoln said okay enough of this slavery bullshit with an executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, it wasn’t like the waving of a magic wand. Hell, the proclamation itself didn’t go into effect until January 1, 1863, and the southern slavers were nah fuck you make us free our enslaved and that’s exactly what the Union Army did. For another two-and-a-half years.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 19, 1865--
Juneteenth is a portmanteau of June Nineteenth. It is also referred to as “Freedom Day” and “Jubilee Day” because it marks an important turning point in the history of slavery. Texas, big surprise, was part of the Racist as Fuck Confederate States of America. But it was way south and didn’t see a lot of the fighting. As a result, it took a while after the Civil War ended for Union troops to move in.
Traitorous General Lee called the war quits on April 9, 1865. But there was no #LeeSurrenders or #LoserConfederacy hashtags to trend on Twitter. It took a while for some to get the memo.
But finally, on June 19, 1865, more than two months after the racist traitors adopted solid white as their official flag with the yeah-okay-we-lost-we-give-up surrender at Appomattox, the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Texas. It was the last Confederate State to have the proclamation announced, and the document was read by Union General Gordan Granger in the city of Galveston, stating, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves . . .” That “absolute equality” stuff is definitely still a work in progress, but it became the basis for a holiday that was celebrated the following year and has seen a significant renewal of attention in recent decades.
The actual proclamation had taken place more than two years before, but southern enslavers weren’t exactly willing to spread the word while the war was still on. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, was passed by the House on January 31, 1865, a few months before the war ended, and fully ratified and adopted six months after the first Juneteenth.
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I enjoyed this, but you might consider moving your usual modifier with respect to the “Fuck Confederate States of America.“ It would be more historically accurate to write “Confederate States of Fuck America.” This is especially true as so many continue to do so to this day.