Happy Juneteenth!!!! –Blaq Independence Day
by BlaqKharma · June 18, 2012
It’s a day that is said to be commemorated in at least 41 of the 50 states. Oddly enough, I tend to come across more people that have never heard of it. Juneteenth or June 19, 1865 Was the day that the slaves in Texas got word that they were free. Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. It didn’t completely go into affect until January 1, 1863. It took over a year for the slaves mainly in Galveston, Texas to get the news that freedom was no longer their life’s dream. It was now reality from there on.
The abolishment of slavery at that time was like a double edged sword. No human being should ever be reduced to live under the physical, and physiological conditions of a slave. Imaging trying to establish a life outside of that. Life as a slave on a plantation is life as you know it. One day your dreams of freedom comes true and you are thrown out to live in a land that you really do not know much about outside of what your owner exposed you to. Then there comes the dreaded word: ECONOMICS.
The Real…
A lot of slaves weren’t properly educated outside of common sense and daily routines. The abolishment of slavery was a bit hard in some ways for the life of a former slave. Making the transition from “slave to “free” was hard. This is where the sharecropping, one of the biggest scams in the world, started. Prison rates and death tolls for blacks sky-rocketed. Disease/plague ran rampantly as well. It was almost like getting knocked on your ass and being told:, “hope you figure out this system that America operates on” after the proclamation went into effect. Not only did the slaves get through this but they went on to defy all the odds. Since then, blacks have contributed more than enough to America whither it be through inventions, or the establishment of other systems and institutions.
For me, Juneteenth is just as valid as Cinco de Mayo and the 4th of July. It is really the only independence day that I truly identify with the most. Went I look at what my people have come from to where we are now, I see flaws but overall, more GROWTH than anything. HAPPY JUNETEENTH
