Post 100 - June 19, 2020

Day 100…

It’s Juneteenth and an even hundred days in.

Our world is starting to look very different after this past century of days than it did when we started.

The President’s re-election campaign seems to have made the astonishing conscious decision to appeal right to the center of the most racist core of his base. He and his advisors appear to be gambling that if they can ignite the fury and passion of the white supremacists throughout the country that he will be able to win re-election.

Scheduling his first rally back on Juneteenth and in Tulsa, site of one of the worst racial massacres in our country’s history, sent a very clear message to that base.  Party’s on.

His campaign has been using an upside-down red triangle in its messaging. That symbol was used by the Nazi’s in their concentration camps to identify political prisoners.

Hitler’s political opponents were some of the first people sent to the camps. According to the Auschwitz Memorial, 95% of the prisoners there in the fall of 1944 were political prisoners. A letter inside the triangle would indicate nationality. Social Democrats, Communists, union members - all of them were considered a threat to Hitler and his party and were thrown into the camps.

The current Administration has co-opted the red triangle in recent days to use as a symbol against protesters. The President’s base knows exactly what it means. Facebook, yesterday, removed all of the advertising on the site that contained the symbol. The campaign complained, saying that they were just using it as an emoji.

After planning his first rally for his base, following the shutdown, in Tulsa for today, the blowback was so intense that it actually made the President reschedule it.

After moving it to tomorrow, the President tweeted, “I did something good. I made Juneteenth very famous. It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”  In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he was told that his administration had put out statements on Juneteenth on each of his first three years in office. “Oh really? We put out a statement? The White House put out a statement? Ok, ok. Good.”

On some level, the recent abhorent actions of his campaign actually have brought attention to Juneteenth.  Personally, I thought I knew what it was, but it turned out that I didn’t.

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was formally issued on January 1, 1863. It declared that all enslaved persons in the Confederate States of America in rebellion and not in Union hands were to be freed.

The wording was specific. It actually did not cover slave-holding areas in States such as Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and Maryland or in the tip of Louisiana around New Orleans. It also didn’t cover the, as of yet, unincorporated territories to the west.

It was a calculation on Lincoln’s part that gave the Union some strategic advantages during the war. Slaves from the south who escaped to the north and became free could, for the first time, join the Union army and carry weapons. It also insured that England and France, both of whom were against slavery, would throw their support behind the Union and not behind the Confederacy.

Many people from the eastern States had moved into Texas during the war with their slaves to avoid the fighting. As a result, the slave population there grew to about a quarter of a million people. Distances were vast and communication was unreliable.

Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865 but word of that only reached Texas later in the month.

There is a story that a messenger who had been sent to deliver word of the original proclamation was murdered so Texans never knew their slaves had been freed. There is also the very real possibility that the owners actually did know and just didn’t tell their slaves. Some historians even think that there is evidence that some in the federal government withheld the information on purpose so as to insure one final cotton harvest before farmers lost their source of free labor.

At any rate, On June 18, 1865 Major General Gordon Granger finally arrived in Galveston, Texas and the next day, June 19, publicly read out the contents of General Order Number 3:

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, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

There were celebrations. The following year, in Galveston, freedmen organized the first of what became an annual celebration called Jubilee Day. By the 1890’s the day started to become known as Juneteenth.

In 1938, the then Governor of Texas James V. Allred issued the following proclamation:

Whereas, the Negroes in the State of Texas observe June 19 as the official day for the celebration of Emancipation from slavery; and

Whereas, June 19, 1865, was the date when General Robert S. Granger, who had command of the Military District of Texas, issued a proclamation notifying the Negroes of Texas that they were free; and

Whereas, since that time, Texas Negroes have observed this day with suitable holiday ceremony, except during such years when the day comes on a Sunday; when the Governor of the State is asked to proclaim the following day as the holiday for State observance by Negroes; and

Whereas, June 19, 1938, this year falls on Sunday; NOW, THEREFORE, I, JAMES V. ALLRED, Governor of the State of Texas, do set aside and proclaim the day of June 20, 1938, as the date for observance of EMANCIPATION DAY in Texas, and do urge all members of the Negro race in Texas to observe the day in a manner appropriate to its importance to them.

To date, 49 of the 50 States recognize this day either as a State holiday or a special day of remembrance. Montana is the sole holdout. On Friday, Mayor de Blasio announced that Juneteenth would become an official holiday in the city of New York starting next year. There is now a concerted push to make Juneteenth a formally recognized national holiday.

Interestingly, the slaves in those five Union States plus the tip of Louisiana who were not mentioned in the Emancipation Proclamation, were not officially freed until several months later on December 6th when the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified.

Today also marks the last of Governor Cuomo’s daily briefings. As we head towards reopening, he feels the need for them is waning.

In his closing remarks he asked, “Why does our politics appeal to our fear and weakness rather than to our strengths?”  I think, that as we go into our November elections, that that is a question that we all need to ask.

There are 28 marches, vigils and protests in support of the Black Lives Movement scheduled for today in Manhattan, alone. If you participate, please wear a mask. We cannot lose all of the ground that we have gained during this war with COVID-19.

Juneteenth is a day of celebration. A day of Freedom. It is also a day of remembrance.

I’ll leave this with a couple of quotes from Governor Cuomo’s briefing today:

“We will be stronger for what we have gone through.”

“Our better angels are stronger than our demons.”