Today Is the Nineteenth of June
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. . .
-Isaiah 52:7-
President Biden mentioned slavery as a stain on our history. Some will see it as a stain on the whole country, others will see it as the only stain, and still, others will see it as a stain on only our country. None of those views are accurate. Uncle Sam’s clothes have more smears and tears and stains than if he had been sleeping off a bender in a dumpster.
Of course, it wasn’t all of us or only us and we were only a small part of a huge international horror. Yes, I know I’m flirting with heresy, speaking from what I know rather than reading from the script, but hey, that’s 21st-century intellectual authoritarianism. There’s no avoiding it.
But sure, I would like to see more holidays, whether or not they involve schools and banks and stock exchanges and the post office. Our nation has taken many steps, passed many milestones that should be commemorated. Perhaps there will be such in the future if we discontinue soiling the national pants as regards civil rights and democracy for all.
We do have to expect that even holidays commemorating or memorializing momentous things like the end of the Civil War or other wars, this being the USA, will degenerate into a celebration of beer and hamburgers and the corporations that provide them, But June the Nineteenth, the day the word arrived in faraway Texas, the word that abolition was no longer an unfulfilled goal and liberty no longer a lie, means something. How beautiful.
But please, may I call it June Nineteenth? Please?
About Post Author
Glenn Geist
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I would like to know why the Republicans actually voted for it. Out of character for them. I smell a trap.
I agree. June Nineteenth, please!
Should I mention that many formerly slave states already have Emancipation days and that those dates are pronounced in full. Here in Florida it was May 20th and though it generally goes by without much notice, it was still May 20th and not Mayentieth. Will it be more or less noticed in future? We shall see.