Hey Bob, how's the telegraph line coming along? Great! Hey, I'vegot this message for you to deliver . . . ahh, fuck it.
As you all know (or don’t), the holiday of Juneteenth has come and gone once again. If you somehow forgot the holiday, here’s a refresher: Juneteenth commemorates General Gordon Granger’s ride into Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, and issuance of an order that freed the last of the slaves. On that day, the legend goes, a great celebration broke out. Today there are great Juneteenth celebrations as well, but some people seem to be missing the message of the holiday.
In Milwaukee, a 33-year-old man has a broken tooth and cuts all over his face after a group of teenagers pulled him from his car and beat him following Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration. In Austin, a crowd attacked and killed a passenger in a vehicle that had struck and injured a child, police said Wednesday. Police believe 2,000 to 3,000 people were in the area for a Juneteenth celebration when the attack occurred. The man who was killed had been trying to stop the group from attacking the vehicle's driver when the crowd turned on him, authorities said. In Syracuse, the Juneteenth celebration was ordered shut down by police three hours early after fights broke out among youths at the event.
But why on Earth would Juneteenth revelers turn violent? Could it be that they finally realized the utter bullshit of the holiday? On Juneteenth, Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, with news that enslaved blacks were free, A FULL TWO-AND-A-HALF-YEARS AFTER PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION HAD DECLARED THEM SO.
Perhaps the revelers experienced a collective, “What the fuck took them so long?”
Now, I’m sure that there are several “explanations” of why there was such a delay, but I’m declaring all of those “explanations” to be bullshit. For an announcement as important as “slaves are free,” perhaps one should put the urgent stamp on the message.
Now, I’m sure that there are several “explanations” of why there was such a delay, but I’m declaring all of those “explanations” to be bullshit. For an announcement as important as “slaves are free,” perhaps one should put the urgent stamp on the message.
The distance from Washington D.C. to Galveston is roughly 1300 miles. The Pony Express, who was in service in 1860-1861, averaged ten miles per hour. Thus, assuming 8 hour days, it would’ve taken the ol’ Express roughly 16 days to deliver the message to free the slaves in Texas (Ironically, the fastest Pony Express message delivery was Lincoln’s Inaugural Address, which was transported between telegraph lines in a mere 7 days and 17 hours).
But, you say, the Express didn’t operate in 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted, so they couldn’t have delivered the message so quickly. Wrong. The Pony Express met its rapid and untimely demise because of the introduction of the Intercontinental Telegraph, which for the first time enabled rapid communication from coast to coast. Materials for the telegraph line were collected in late 1860, and construction proceeded during the summer and fall of 1861 and was completed the same year.
The telegraph line traveled through Omaha, Nebraska. Thus, it is virtually certain that Omaha knew that slaves were to be freed almost simultaneously with the 1863 proclamation. Further, Omaha is only 950 miles from Galveston, yet nobody felt it important to get their ass on a horse or toss a note into a stagecoach letting slaves know that they were free to do whatever the hell they wanted. I mean, shit, that's an eleven-day ride. Fuck it.
The Intercontinental telegraph route 
3 comments:
Columbus day is significantly more genuine a holiday than Juneteenth, and that's saying a lot.
Personally, I'm more for a holiday celebrating John Brown's heroics at Harper's Ferry. Or even Gersey's heroics in getting banned from a Denny's in Dallas (don't ask).
Juneteenth is America’s 2nd Independence Day celebration. Americans of African descent were trapped in the tyranny of enslavement on the country's first "4th of July", 1776, Independence Day. We honor our ancestors, Americans of African descent, who heard the news of freedom and celebrated with great joy and jubilation, on the "19th of June", Juneteenth, 1865.
It took over 88 years for the news of freedom to be announced in Southwest Texas, over two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln.
The National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign has worked diligently for several years to establish legislation in 29 states to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or state holiday observance, the District of Columbia, as well as the Congress of the United States. This has been a great accomplishment for the "Modern Juneteenth Movement" in America, reaching far beyond the establishment of Juneteenth as a state holiday in the place were it all began, in Texas, first celebrated in 1980.
Together we will see Juneteenth become a National Holiday in America!
“DOC”
Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., M.D.
Chairman
National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign
National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF)
National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council (NJCLC)
www.Juneteenth.us
www.19thofJune.com
www.njclc.com
www.JuneteenthJazz.com
Here are reasons to not celebrate Juneteenth. First of all, we're being encouraged to celebrate because the slaves celebrated finally being liberated. But the cruelty of keeping people enslaved long after an presidential proclamation declared them free underlies this celebration. Fact of the matter is, some Texans remained enslaved after 19 June. It took time for the Union Army to enforce the law across Texas. Therefore, it comes across as twisted to declare Juneteenth any kind of holiday, much less a federal one.
Second, Juneteenth did not end American slavery. People in other states were still enslaved after 19 June 1865. Legal slavery didn't end in the United States until passage of the 13th Amendment in December 1865, and even all 50 states had to ratify it. The last state to ratify the 13th Amendment was Mississippi, and they didn't do it until February 2013!!!
Third, to say a celebration of slavery's end in 1865 was premature is the grossest understatement you can make. From the frying pan of enslavement, African-Americans were thrown into the fire of Reconstruction's failure, the rise of Jim Crow, brutal disenfranchisement and oppression including lynching and property destruction. If that's what you call freedom, then you're saying the 1950s/60s Civil Rights struggle was unnecessary. We all know better.
Finally, there are strong arguments to be made that the slavery of African Americans still exists. Prison labor is just one example; and if you broaden the discussion past Africans in America, there's also immigrant labor exploitation and sex trafficking to consider.
For these reasons, Juneteenth is a dubious holiday that has already persisted far longer than it should have. I would not celebrate Juneteenth if I were paid to do so!
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