Daily News | Why I celebrate — and mourn — what Juneteenth represents
Painting by Mikel Elam / Painting by Mikel Elam / Special to The InquirerJuneteenth conjures up a swirling haze of emotions for me. On one hand, it is a celebration of freedom, and, the day some 2,000 Union troops rode into Galveston, Texas, and announced that a quarter million enslaved people in the state had been released from bondage because of an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln.
Thus, Juneteenth is the true Black Independence Day, and therein lies the irony. If not for America’s deadly determination to keep human beings in chains, there would be no need for Juneteenth. If America had honored its own creed — that all men are created equal — chattel slavery would never have existed here. We would all mark our freedom as one. But we don’t. We can’t, because America has never been one.
In 1846, David Wilmot, a Pennsylvania Democrat who adhered to Free Soil principles, put forth a piece of legislation that became known as the Wilmot Proviso. The bill was meant to stop slavery’s expansion into territory America acquired after the. If passed, the legislation would have led to higher wages and more land for poor white people to cultivate.
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