JUNETEENTH 2025

“Juneteenth… It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, things do get better, America can change.”

 -Barack Obama

It is the season of Juneteenth. A celebration of forgetfulness albeit purposeful, neglectful, convenient, or just plain mean – well, let’s take a look. 

If you are a black person in America, you were probably taught to not trust white people. To the uninitiated this may, at first glance, seem extreme, but really, is it? Slavery existed for 246 years in the United States of America. The first enslaved Africans in what would become the United States were brought to present day St. Augustine Fla. by the Spanish in 1565 this according to an Olivia Waxman article published by Time in 2019. The turning point for the introduction of slavery in America came with the capture of a Portuguese slave ship by an English privateer in 1619. These enslaved individuals were captured in a war between Portugal and the African kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo, which is present day Angola. (Incidentally the spelling of Kongo with a “C” comes from the Portuguese translation.) It is documented that 20-30 Africans were traded to Governor George Yeardley and Cape merchant Abraham Piersey for food at Point Comfort on the Virginia Peninsula. The practice of slavery had gained footing in the American colonies.

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1,1863. This brings us to the aforementioned season of Juneteenth. On June19,1865 Major General Gordon Granger along with 2000 Union troops rode into Galveston Bay, Texas to order that all 250,000 enslaved people of Texas were now to be freed by Executive decree. This was two and a half years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Slavery in the United States of America officially ended with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, 1865.

Happy Juneteenth.

Peace,

Radical Urge