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BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal Holiday

17 Jun 21 - 10:38 PM (#4110528)
Subject: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: robomatic

On 19 June 1865 Federal troops arrived in Galveston Texas with the news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which dated from 1862. Now the entire United States can catch up now as Texas had to do then. I've always liked the name Juneteenth.


I am not currently in the work force so I do not know if private companies have to add this to the current roster of national holidays or make this an elective. I don't even know what Municipal and State and Fed facilities are doing tomorrow. I wonder if they do!

17 Jun 21 - 11:23 PM (#4110530)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: Stilly River Sage

The news this evening said that tomorrow will be a holiday for federal employees. Agencies have various policies in place for when people have to work those dates (a different day of the week is designated as their holiday or they receive double time for the worked holiday).

I moved to Texas in 1982 and soon learned about this holiday that I had never heard of living in other parts of the US. Since it is also my ex-spouse's birthday, it is easy to remember. There's a real trifecta when Father's Day also lands on the 19th.

There will be pushback, but this has been necessary for a very long time. And on MSNBC tonight on my drive home from a class I heard them talk about Opal Lee of Fort Worth and interview a Texas congressmember about her. Ms Lee is in her 90s and is (as Joe Biden said) "the grandmother of the Juneteenth holiday" and has been working to make this a holiday all of her adult life. The idea that it actually happened in her lifetime frankly brings tears to my eyes. (The city just named a new multi-income housing development for her, after a bunch of projects were torn down and the neighbors unhappily displaced. Not all movement is viewed as progress.)

18 Jun 21 - 06:44 AM (#4110557)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: Donuel

Although this holiday is 40 years in the making it was passed on the first vote compared to the multiple defeats of the MLK holiday.
The days of hiding some truths of America are history.
It will take decades for Juneteeth to be associated with mattress sales or some other distraction.

18 Jun 21 - 10:13 AM (#4110569)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: Stilly River Sage

The news this morning said that the post office can't turn on a dime, they'll be open and delivering today. They need more notice to shift their operations for the holiday, so next year they'll start observing it and I imagine their people will all get double time for today or tomorrow.

18 Jun 21 - 10:32 AM (#4110571)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: Mrrzy

Ok lemme say this about that.

When I first moved to Virginia in 1985, I was taught that Juneteenth, already a local thing, celebrated the last slaves finding out they were free. I was taught that it was called Juneteenth ***specifically and on purpose because nobody knew when that had happened*** so while I am glad it is a national thing now, I think some white folks decided it had to have an exact date and commemorate an exact time. Which is culural appropriation, or something, that shows disrespect of the actual black experience of slavery in the US. I think.

I would be open to the idea that in the last decades they discovered historical evidence that those individuals were the last slaves freed, I guess, but otherwise I object to the digitizing [metaphorically] of an analog event.

I think this way is much less reflective of the actuality of white people keeping their niggers, which is what they were *to them*, ignorant and enslaved.

I am glad Juneteenrh is a holiday, and I don't mind having a day on which to celebrate it. I just object to the switch to a particular event that we don't, that I know of, know was the actual thing.

And the fact, if it still is one, that we don't know when it happened, ***which is critical to what is being celebrated*** by calling the holiday Juneteenth in the first place, is now obscured.

Rant off.

18 Jun 21 - 11:59 AM (#4110582)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: Jeri

The exact date is known.

From Golden West College, I got:
History of Juneteenth

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862. It went into effect on January 1, 1863. However, slaves were not set free in the Confederacy until Union army was able to come in and take over. On June 18, 1865 the Union army arrived in Galveston, Texas. The next day, June 19th, General Gordon Granger announced that the slaves in Texas were free by order of the president of the United States.

The former slaves in Galveston celebrated the day that they were set free. The first Juneteenth celebration took place the very next year.

The annual celebration began to spread throughout Texas and surrounding states. However, it became less popular in the early 1900's. It became popular once again in the 1950's and 1960's. In 1980 it became an official state holiday in Texas. There is currently a movement to get the day recognized on a national level.
I'd never heard of it, then, I was stationed in Texas, and it was a really big deal. I occasionally heard about it after that, usually from black folks. We white folks were generally oblivious.

18 Jun 21 - 01:03 PM (#4110585)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal
From: robomatic

I don't know when I learned about Juneteenth but I was definitely an adult. I developed a fascination with the (US) Civil War when I was young and read many books but I didn't know about Juneteenth.

When I had time between jobs I made a road trip to various Civil War battle sites but I had the opportunity to visit some slave quarters which were actually sites that had been slave quarters rather than serious reconstructions.

Reading up on the Civil War is different from reading about slavery. Lincoln apprehended slavery as the cause and crux of the War and expressed this many times. The Emancipation put it in law and apparently save the United States from a real chance that the United Kingdom would enforce the Confederacy's 'right of trade' or even take more concrete actions against the U.S.

19 Jun 21 - 12:32 PM (#4110684)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal Holiday
From: leeneia

Texas isn't the only state. It's called Juneteenth because different Confederate states got their announcements on different days in mid-June.

19 Jun 21 - 04:11 PM (#4110700)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal Holiday
From: Donuel

Thanks Jeri, I only knew Texas had a problem with it.

19 Jun 21 - 07:19 PM (#4110719)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal Holiday
From: Stilly River Sage

Sorry leeneia, but it's just Texas and it is just June 19.

From the Smithsonian:

Juneteenth derives its name from June 19, 1865—the day that U.S. General Gordon Granger informed the enslaved individuals of Galveston, Texas, that they were officially free. Issued two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Granger’s decree marked the end of slavery in the rebellious Confederate states.
Think portmanteau when you look at the name. "June" and "nineteenth" were simply blended into Juneteenth.

20 Jun 21 - 02:29 AM (#4110746)
Subject: RE: BS: Happy Juneteenth! Now Federal Holiday
From: Mr Red

it had to have an exact date and commemorate an exact time.

On purely practical terms it is convenient to have predictable holy days. In the UK, Easter is a movable feast and few people can predict (or know what is) the vernal equinox, let alone figure the rest of the calculation. And the Gov delight in making a very predictable end of May holiday into a queenie June celebration.

Stick with a date and remember why it exists.