Juneteenth


On Thursday, June 17, 2021, President Biden signed legislation which was overwhelmingly passed by the House and Senate, making Juneteenth a federal holiday.  Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery by marking the day that enslaved people in Texas learned that they were free.  This was on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect.  For obvious reasons, word was slow to spread to people who were enslaved.  Texas was the last state in which the state government was still permitting slavery, in resistance to the federal law.  Juneteenth has been celebrated since 1866, and is also known as Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day,and Black Independence Day. 

Father's Day

I spent this last Father’s Day in silent, burning rage at my dad, and it’s taken me three months to sort it out enough to write.