I wrote this blog way back in my senior year of college, 2018, but considering today is Juneteenth and it is all over social media, why not share my words and thoughts on the matter. And by my words, I mostly mean Wikipedia’s words with some adlibs thrown in, but nonetheless. Enjoy a history lesson with your morning coffee, or your afternoon drink on this beautiful Friday.
HISTORY LESSON TIME!!
(This is legit just me making the Wikipedia page about Juneteenth mildly entertaining, it’s not long I promise)
June 19th, 1865. The day every slave in America was officially freed. Now, you’re probably thinking, “but wasn’t the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862?” It was, but the EP didn’t actually free ALL the slaves… The EP didn’t free any slaves in the Border States (Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri), Texas, Tennessee, West Virginia (which didn’t technically exist yet, but it was the same territory), parts of Virginia, and parts of Louisana. Long story already long, hella slaves didn’t actually get freed. Once the war ended, it took a little bit for the news to spread the Confederates had surrendered due to a lack of wifi and such. The Confederates surrendered in April and parts of Texas didn’t find out until May… talk about snail mail (ba dum dum chhhh, I’m funny, just keep reading)!!!!! On June 18th a Union Army General showed up in Gavelston, TX with 2,000 Union troops and took over. On June 19th, 1865, General Gordan Granger stood on the balcony of a fancy ass house and told the people of Texas that slavery was donezos!
As we all know, the end of slavery didn’t really do much for black folks in America, but we can’t sleep on Juneteenth!!!! It’s something that needs to be taught in schools and celebrated nationally. I didn’t even know it existed until I saw the Blackish episode centered around it.
Blackish is one of the best shows on TV, and there will be a blog post about that later so stay tuned for that, but their Juneteenth episode is FIRE. It has a not one, but TWO Hamilton style musical numbers explaining Juneteenth, and a cute little cartoon song about slavery (putting the words cute and slavery in the sentence killed me a little inside, but it is a cute cartoon). Aloe Black is in it if you needed any other push to watch the episode.
So why should we celebrate Juneteenth? If you read the history behind the date and are still asking please message me because you may require assistance. We celebrate all kinds of holidays in America like President’s Day and god damn Columbus Day, WHO DIDN’T EVEN STEP FOOT IN WHAT IS NOW THE UNITED STATES AND HE ALSO KILLED A BUNCH OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE BUT ITS FINE. Black History Month and MLK Jr Day aint enough for the CENTURIES of pain and suffering that African Americans had to go through.
What you should have gotten from this post:
- Juneteenth should be celebrated and we should have work off and no school and all that good shit
- .Watch the Blackish episode. It’s season 4 episode 1
- Learn more about Black History, because it’s cool and theres so much of it in America and we don’t/can’t learn all of it in school (Even though Juneteenth is 100% something that should be taught in every American school BUT ITS FINE)
- I’m trying to have a rager on June 19th to celebrate, a festival, if you will
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