Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Happy Juneteenth!

It's June 19th 2013 and in Texas we (or some of us, anyway) call it Juneteenth.
 
On June 19th 1863, exactly 150 years ago today, Texas first received word, at the Port of Galveston, of President Abraham Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, whereby all slaves currently held in states currently in rebellion were declared then and forever free.


It took an act of Congress, literally, to do the rest a little later on, but this was a nice start.
 
Not coincidentally, this is also the 49th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
 
On that day, President Johnson announced that the Democratic Party would be "signing away The South for 50 years."
 
Did I ever mention that I thought that President Johnson was an optimist?

1 comment:

Gadfly said...

Actually, it was June 19, 1865, not 1863. That's why it was such a big deal. By mid-1863, by land, Texas was already cut off from the rest of the Confederacy pretty much. On the other hand, the Union blockade fleet plus troops wasn't able to capture and hold any Texas ports. Ergo, even by the grapevine, few people black or white knew about the Emancipation Proclamation until Gen. Granger told them.