Honoring Black History
I can appreciate Perspective author Linda Chavers’s discomfort with Juneteenth being a national holiday (Perspective, June 19). The enslavement of the African-American community is only a few generations away and the pain must feel very close. My family celebrates a different holiday marking liberation from slavery: Passover. For me, this holiday has been more significant and enjoyable when we have shared it with family or friends, whether or not it is part of their tradition.
The Passover Seder is made more meaningful when we include others because it is a reminder of our freedom from slavery 3,000 years ago; Juneteenth must be even more significant and relevant to the Black community since the events were a mere 160 years ago.
Edwin Andrews Malden
As a native Texan, I understand why Texas celebrates Juneteenth, which was the day the Emancipation Proclamation was read aloud in the streets of Galveston, but it seems strange to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Juneteenth is not the day slavery ended in the United States—the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery. It applied only to portions of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion against the United States on January 1,1863. Slavery was still legal in several states and portions of Confederate states until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865.
Blair Case posted on bostonglobe.com
I don’t think the particular date matters — the holiday is a celebration of the formal, legal abolition of slavery. We should celebrate it as a positive national achievement that was the result of decades of abolitionist political struggle and a bloody civil war in which over half a million Americans were killed. It should be a day in which we renew our commitment to the continued improvement of our nation in the direction of freedom and equality for all.
TowardABetterWorld posted on bostonglobe.com
It’s so sad few of us ever learned about Juneteenth. It should be acknowledged, maybe as a day of education.
Freudenrich posted on bostonglobe.com