USA TODAY International Edition
Another view: Honor the 13th Amendment instead
Even in this guilt- ridden moment of come- to- Jesus reckoning with America’s racist past and present, this nation is unlikely to add two more Afrocentric federal holidays to the 10 days already on America’s official holiday calendar.
There is bipartisan support in Congress for the bill to elevate the ever popular Juneteenth to federal holiday status. Black and white citizens, however, should write members of Congress, urging them to swap out the Juneteenth language for 13th Amendment-holiday legislation instead.
Much of the public discussion and news media reporting on Juneteenth present information about its origins and reasons to celebrate it that are confusing, contradictory or flat out wrong. If America has but one Black Lives Matter holiday to give as a companion to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let it honor the 13th Amendment to the Constitution instead.
To be sure, Juneteenth is worthy of the recognition it enjoys at some level of celebration in 47 states. But after the first Juneteenth — June 19, 1865 — slavery still persisted in America. The nation ought not congratulate itself by falsely celebrating the end of a nightmare that had not in fact ended.
Although Sen. John Cornyn, R- Texas, and others acknowledge that Juneteenth really freed only Texas slaves, the Juneteenth cheerleaders also erroneously claim the end of slavery in America as part of the party as well. They should not, because it was not. Enslaved Americans in part of the North and South remained in bondage in the USA after Juneteenth.
Only the controlling law of the land — the Constitution via its 13th Amendment — put an end to chattel slavery in America. Not Juneteenth, and not even the Emancipation Proclamation.
When Georgia ratified the amendment on Dec. 6, 1865, the requisite three- quarters of the states had delivered universal freedom to the American experiment for the first time.
The United States changed the course of its slave history forever on Dec. 6, 1865. The 155th anniversary of the event will arrive this year.
Let’s give America the day off with pay then and every Dec. 6 thenceforth and forever.