June 13, 2023
Beloved in Christ:
On June 19, 1865, nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln emancipated enslaved Africans in America, Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, with news of freedom. More than 250,000 African Americans embraced freedom by executive decree in what became known as Juneteenth or Freedom Day. With the principles of self-determination, citizenship, and democracy magnifying their hopes and dreams, those Texans held fast to the promise of true liberty for all.
This is a short description of the reason behind the newly created federal holiday of Juneteenth. President Biden signed this holiday into law in 2021 with bipartisan support. To learn more about this historically significant event in our country, I recommend going to the website of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This year, Juneteenth is next Monday.
Frankly, with so much going on in the world right now, I had lost track of this holiday. However, I’m old enough to remember the push-back that happened in some states when then-President Reagan signed the bill that created the Federal Martin Luther King JR holiday in 1983. The first federal MLK Jr Holiday was celebrated in 1986. Only 17 states had adopted it. Finally, in 1994 Congress designated MLK Jr Day as a national day of service, and created the tradition of marking every third Sunday of January as MLK Day. It took, overall, 15 years of persistence by courageous Civil Rights activists to have this holiday approved by our national government, and an additional 17 years for it to be recognized in all 50 states. I certainly hope it doesn’t take that long for our country and for all people living in the freedom of these 50 states to recognize Juneteenth as the significant holiday that it is.
May we all journey with our black neighbors, friends and fellow-freedom lovers to honor and celebrate the day when the slaves in Galveston Bay, Texas, finally learned, two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law, that they were free human beings. As we are all created, by God, to be. If any human is a slave, if any human is considered “less than,” then we are all in that same situation. The effects of the scourge and sin of slavery are still resonating throughout our country, as we all know. May we learn, grow, listen, and wholeheartedly support the loving nature of God who creates all humans to be as one, unified, and working toward the Kingdom of God becoming real now, in our time.
in faith,
Beth+
