Juneteenth
Today is Juneteenth, nationally observed.
I can’t say I know much about Juneteenth, and this mornings Heather Cox Richardson Letters to An American gives a good brief historical seminar.
Here’s a history from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Scroll down at this site for more links.
It appears that the Twin Cities main observance is on West Broadway, Minneapolis, today.
Search “Juneteenth” for more.
This seems an appropriate time to present an interview with my friend, Melvin Giles, in 2014. (at the link, scroll down to Melvin Giles video). Melvin was very involved in peacemaking actions in his St. Paul neighborhood and elsewhere. The video was made in St. Paul by two Pakistani Fulbright scholars at the University of Minnesota
Juneteenth narks the anniversary of white anger and place demolishing Black Wall Street in Tulsa for totally racist reasons, nothing more and nothing less. Donnee is appearing to to that same most base nature in human beings to try to establish an autocracy in the US with him as the dictator or king. Not much has changed, i am afraid!
Thanks. Just out of curiosity I went to the White House website and in the search box entered “Juneteenth”. “No results found”. Heather Cox Richardson gives a very good summary. I think that a Texas lady was the real impetus for its eventually becoming a state and then a national observance starting in the 1980s. Melvin Giles (the video) made me aware of the St. Paul observance in the 2000s. Apparently it is now a twin cities observance, this year in N. Minneapolis.