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* I’m most definitely not trying to pick on one party or person here, because this is a widely believed myth…
#Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery on the day in 1865 when news of emancipation finally got to slaves in Texas pic.twitter.com/hehRXDEjFh
— ILSenateGOP (@ILSenateGOP) June 19, 2015
* The history…
One hundred fifty years ago today, the U.S. Army took possession of Galveston Island, a barrier island just off the Texas coast that guards the entrance to Galveston Bay, and began a late-arriving, long-lasting war against slavery in Texas. This little-known battle would endure for months after the end of what we normally think of as the Civil War. This struggle, pitting Texas freedpeople and loyalists and the U.S. Army against stubborn defenders of slavery, would become the basis for the increasingly popular celebrations of Juneteenth, a predominantly African-American holiday celebrating emancipation on or about June 19th every year.
The historical origins of Juneteenth are clear. On June 19, 1865, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger, newly arrived with 1,800 men in Texas, ordered that “all slaves are free” in Texas and that there would be an “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” The idea that any such proclamation would still need to be issued in June 1865 – two months after the surrender at Appomattox - forces us to rethink how and when slavery and the Civil War really ended. And in turn it helps us recognize Juneteenth as not just a bookend to the Civil War but as a celebration and commemoration of the epic struggles of emancipation and Reconstruction.
By June 19, 1865, it had been more than two years since President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, almost five months since Congress passed the 13th Amendment, and more than two months since General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate army at Appomattox Court House. So why did Granger need to act to end slavery?
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 11:54 am
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Why bother to use the google to learn a little African-American — I mean, AMERICAN — history when you can lazily repeat something you heard somebody say once?
Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:10 pm
On June 19, 2015, the flags of the United States and the state of South Carolina had been lowered to half-mast over the capitol building at Columbia.
Yet on the statehouse grounds, the Stars and Bars waved proudly at full mast, a visible padlock and chain preventing it from being lowered by anyone.
I can’t cut and paste with this gadget, but you can see the picture that tells that sick story in the Washington Post.
Comment by Wordslinger Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:14 pm
Not only the story of Juneteeth and the West during and after the war is important, but also learning about peonage, the origins of “malicious mischief,” and the prison plantation system that developed during the latter part of the 1800s is equally critical.
Comment by Precinct Captain Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:20 pm
===Ending slavery was not simply a matter of issuing pronouncements. It was a matter of forcing rebels to obey the law. To a very real extent, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment amounted to promissory notes of freedom.===
Money quote. Remember this when the brou-ha-ha erupts over flying the Confederate flag. It’s nice to think that, for some, the flag displays respect for ancestors and their southern heritage. For many others, it signals continued defiance of the laws of the United States, including and especially the 13th Amendment.
The rebel battle flag has no place on any public building, monument or license plate. Its display is appropriate only in museums, history books and Klan rallies.
Comment by 47th Ward Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:21 pm
What’s next for Senate GOPers, Tarrantino’s explanation of how Sicilians ended up with dark hair?
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:21 pm
#Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery on the day in 1865 when news of emancipation finally got to slaves in Texas
It amazes me how the party of Lincoln could be so ignorant about its own accomplishments.
Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:28 pm
It was a far more complicated history than Juneteenth. The reality of millions of newly freed slaves attempting to survive in a post-war, utterly ruined South is one of the most underreported tragedies in American history. Highly recommend Jim Downs’ ‘Sick from Freedom’ to those interested in the subject.
Comment by Henry Moon Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:29 pm
Wordslinger proves again why he is my favorite commenter.
Comment by Vote Quimby! Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:37 pm
The surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House represented an important milestone, but it was not the actual end of the Civil War.
The surrender of Lee (to Ulysses S. Grant of Galena, Illinois) marked the end of operations of the Army of Northern Virginia. The Confederate government fled from Richmond and attempted to relocate elsewhere. Jefferson Davis was captured in Georgia.
After Appomattox, there were still other Confederate armies in the field and other surrenders took place later: Joseph Johnston surrendered to William Tecumseh Sherman in near Goldsboro, North Carolina; Nathan Bedford Forrest surrendered in Alabama. Confederate armies in the Trans-Mississippi region (”Kirby Smithdom” to some), which included Texas, were among the last to surrender. There were no telephones or fax machines to communicate Lee’s surrender to those fighting on the frontier. The last Confederate force to surrender was in the Indian Territory (current day Oklahoma). The last Confederate ship to strike its flag occurred months and months later since it had been on the high seas.
Of course, we in Illinois have had our own “states’ rights” advocates. An Illinois Secretary of State refused to alter the Illinois State motto which still reads “State Sovereignty National Union.” The legislature had ordered that the terms be reversed. There were definitely “Copperheads” opposed to Lincoln in Southern Illinois and an active conspiracy in Chicago aimed to effect a prison break at Camp Douglas to return Confederate prisoners of war to the front lines. This plot was foiled.
Comment by Under Further Review Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:42 pm
Wordslinger & Henry Moon hit it. Regardless of the law, if holdouts around Galveston were there, then the Feds had an obligation to enforce the law. Regardless of a law being passed, it’s effectiveness is reliant on those being governed adhering to that law and the authorizing authority enforcing it. Here is a case of reasonably enforcement.
Comment by Lt. Guv. Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:46 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/opinion/juneteenth-is-for-everyone.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:47 pm
This is the needed context for discussions of “states rights” and allegations of federal overreaching.
Comment by Mercutio Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:48 pm
yet another reason that I will not retire to SC….that flag. way past time to end the use of it. shameful.
Comment by Amalia Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:54 pm
God bless General Gordon Granger.
Comment by paddyrollingstone Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 12:57 pm
And then there’s this — I guess what you would call encouraging news:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/ct-2014-executive-compensation-0621-biz-20150619-story.html
(”Illinois’ CEOs got bigger raises than their peers last year”)
Gosh, with massive paychecks like those — things are sure looking up. I mean, if you’re a CEO. Or a billionaire.
Definitely a good time to be rich these days. Good times.
Comment by Frenchie Mendoza Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 1:23 pm
I highly recommend the Slate’s new “History of American Slavery” series if you want to educate yourself about this subject. http://www.slate.com/academy
– MrJM
Comment by MrJM Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 1:25 pm
If enslaved people knew about the Emancipation Proclamation, what exactly did the events of June 19, 1865 mean? Here we face a key forgotten reality about the end of the Civil War and slavery that has been shrouded in the mythology of Appomattox. The internecine conflict and the institution of slavery could not and did not end neatly at Appomattox or on Galveston Island. Ending slavery was not simply a matter of issuing pronouncements. It was a matter of forcing rebels to obey the law. To a very real extent, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment amounted to promissory notes of freedom. The real on-the-ground work of ending slavery and defending the rudiments of liberty was done by the freedpeople in collaboration with and often backed by the force of the US Army.
Granger’s proclamation may not have brought news of emancipation but it did carry this crucial promise of force. Within weeks, fifty thousand U.S. troops flooded into the state in a late-arriving occupation. These soldiers were needed because planters would not give up on slavery. In October 1865, months after the June orders, white Texans in some regions “still claim and control [slaves] as property, and in two or three instances recently bought and sold them,” according to one report.
To sustain slavery, some planters systematically murdered rebellious African-Americans to try to frighten the rest into submission. A report by the Texas constitutional convention claimed that between 1865 and 1868, white Texans killed almost 400 black people; black Texans, the report claimed, killed 10 whites.
Other planters hoped to hold onto slavery in one form or another until they could overturn the Emancipation Proclamation in court.
Against this resistance, the Army turned to force. In a largely forgotten or misunderstood occupation, the Army spread more than 40 outposts across Texas to teach rebels “the idea of law as an irresistible power to which all must bow.”
Freedpeople did not need the Army to teach them about freedom; they needed the Army to teach planters the futility of trying to sustain slavery.
Comment by Soccermom Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 1:28 pm
if that’s a myth, then someone might want to tell the NAACP.
from http://www.naacp.org/blog/entry/juneteenth-education-is-freedom
“Today is the anniversary of Juneteenth June 19,1865, the day that the Texan slaves found out they were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years after it happened.”
Comment by mcb Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 2:18 pm
Seems like if you really were “…not trying to pick on one party or person here…” you could have done it much more effectively. Juneteenth posts are everywhere today - you could have picked from one of many.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 2:34 pm
===you could have picked from one of many. ===
It was on my own news feed.
Sheesh.
Victims everywhere.
Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 2:36 pm
I have learned over that years that whenever someone says I don’t mean (or want) to __, then they are about to __. Thus, I have endeavored to catch myself before the words “I don’t mean to __” ever make it out my mouth or keyboard.
My guess is the “I don’t mean to __” comes from somewhere inside us that says “hey, are you about to __?”
Comment by mcb Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 2:45 pm
Planters across the deep South and Florida operated plantations with “legally” enslaved blacks, by using bribed and/or family-member sheriffs and magistrates, and special sweeps of local resident “vagrants” every harvest season. This servitude was finally attacked and mostly eradicated by Federal authorities in the 1910s and 1920’s. And then there was the Louisiana prison system plantations until the 1980s.
Old habits die hard.
Comment by walker Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 3:03 pm
When the “end of slavery” actually happened is a complicated question.
Slavery, for all intents and purposes, was certainly alive well into the 20th Century in the deep south.
After the Great Flood of 1927, with the approval of the Cooldige Administration, black Americans in the Mississippi Delta were rounded into concentration camps and prevented from leaving the area by armed thugs employed by the plutocrats to clean up the mess for slave wages.
The economy of the backward south even then could not function without de facto slavery.
The flood, as much as anything, prompted the Great Migration. The national government’s philosophical indifference to a regional disaster, under Coolidge and the band of Harding fhieves who controlled him, prompted the demand for a true national government as much as the Crash of 29.
it should be noted that the brilliant humanitaritian, Herbert Hoover, strived mightily to do the right thing in the aftermath of the Great Flood, as he had done in Europe after WWI, but was stymied by Coolidge’s indifference, the vile thievery of the Harding leftovers, and the virulent racism of the southern plutocrats.
Comment by Wordslinger Friday, Jun 19, 15 @ 3:34 pm