CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – Tomorrow we celebrate Juneteenth. It’s the day that our nation’s dark stain of slavery finally came to an end.
In the months and years after the Civil War, it became clear that some slave owners had no intention of releasing their captives. Slave emancipation came at different times in different states, sometimes through laws and sometimes through military occupation. And in some parts of the country freed slaves would become little more than indentured servants; renters under unfair economic conditions on the same land that they worked in bondage.
Juneteenth marks the day, June 19th, 1865, that General Gordon Granger marched his soldiers to Galveston, Texas and read a proclamation that all slaves were immediately freed. Those who continued to hold slaves would be court martialed and hanged.
Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021. It has been observed by African Americans for centuries at church picnics and cemetery memorials.
You ask, will I be celebrating? Yes. One of the great things about America is that we are a self-correcting nation. Slavery was and is evil. Our nation’s moral compass was slow to turn against it. But turn it did. We fought a great civil war where white lives were laid down for black freedom – as it should have been. This is the day we mark the end of human bondage in our nation; the day slavery ended. Indeed, a day worth celebrating.
Chris Conley
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