Judge Joe Brown & Others Say To Boycott Juneteenth
Channel: MentalHouse TV w/Khadijah
Date: 2021-06-26

On June 19, 1865, after white Southerners had extended the enslavement of countless Black people by concealing the Civil War’s end for more than two months, Union troops arrived in Texas. For the first time, local Black residents learned that the Confederacy had lost the war and that they were free under the Emancipation Proclamation.

Although President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had theoretically freed enslaved Black people in Confederate territories when it was issued in 1863, that declaration was largely unenforceable in locations that remained under Confederate control. The Proclamation had almost no effect in Texas and other Confederate states that rejected the freedom of enslaved people—especially on plantations that had little contact with Union forces. 

Despite the limits of the Proclamation’s reach during war-time, the Confederate Army's surrender on April 9, 1865, should have immediately freed enslaved Black people in all states and territories where the Proclamation applied. The Proclamation had exempted the so-called “border states” of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri, so even Union victory did not affect slavery in those areas. 

Where Confederate defeat did mean emancipation, white Southerners committed to white supremacy and the continued exploitation of Black “slaves” used violence, misinformation, and threats to keep Black people in bondage. Union troops’ arrival in Texas on June 19, 1865, brought news of freedom to Black men, women, and children who had waited far too long. That date came to be known as “Juneteenth” in the African American community, and has for generations remained a day of remembrance, joyous celebration, and hope: remembrance of the hardships and pain of enslavement; joyous celebration of our survival; and hope for the opportunity and peace that freedom ought to bring.

Juneteenth does not denote a struggle completed or a finished line reached. Black Americans faced many threats to their liberty and their lives in the years after the Civil War, and face continued injustice still. 

Slavery did not become illegal throughout the entire U.S. until ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865—though it’s important to note that the amendment’s language, still in force today, created an exception authorizing involuntary servitude “as punishment for crime.” Even after the 13th Amendment became national law, many Southern states including Kentucky and Delaware resisted ratifying the provision for decades. Mississippi, the last state to do so, refused to pass ratification legislation until 1995, and didn’t formally file the passage until 2013.

Black Americans quickly learned that freedom’s potential, celebrated with such hope on Juneteenth, would take more than one law or one day to fulfill. Though the end of the Civil War brought the liberation of formerly enslaved people and drastically altered the political and social landscape of the nation, what followed emancipation would determine whether the U.S. would seize or waste this opportunity to lay a new foundational commitment to true liberty and equality while remedying the harmful and unjust legacies enslavement left behind. The Reconstruction period emerged to answer that question.

Though Reconstruction began with promise and marked achievements, the era proved to be short-lived, dangerous, and deadly. As documented in EJI's report, Reconstruction in America, at least 2,000 African Americans were victims of racial terror lynching during the 12-year period from 1865-1876. As Reconstruction-era policies enforced Black Americans’ new rights of citizenship and protections from enslavement, white Americans formed counter-movements that sought to restore white supremacy using racial violence and political discrimination. Intent on terrorizing Black communities into submission and fear, white mobs were determined to ensure that emancipation would not bring Black people political 
To contact me: khadijahanwar@hotmail.com
artistsforfreedom.anwar@gmail.com
thementalhouse@wi.rr.com
CashApp: $khadijah59
To Donate to my channel:
www.paypal.me/FreeSoul Enterprises
Cash.app/$khadijah59

Thementalhouse@wi.rr.com