We recognize, celebrate, and strongly believe in equality, harmony, and dignity between all races. Today, we celebrate Juneteenth.
Header photo courtesy of WoodTV.com
We here at ThoughtLab are proud to recognize and celebrate Juneteenth.
Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, marks the day when Union Army General Gordon Granger read the federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, that proclaimed all enslaved people in the U.S. State of Texas were now free. This proclamation was read on June 19, 1865.
Although President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had been signed two years earlier, Texas was the most remote of all Confederate states with a low population of Union soldiers so, enforcing the proclamation was slow and for a long time, inconsistent.
This day marks the true end of slavery in the United States, a brutal and bittier time in our nation’s history. One that should never be ignored but one that we must continue to learn from and use to better ourselves. It is a day that we rightfully celebrate together.
As we celebrate, it’s important we keep in mind that, although the physical chains of slavery are now gone, the mental and emotional chains of racism that so many of our brothers and sisters are harnessed with, hampered by, day in and day out, continue to wound and tear us apart.
ThoughtLab believes in equality, harmony, and dignity between all races. We celebrate Juneteenth and look to a time when the hearts and minds of our country are united in peace and the last remnant of the sickness that is racism is healed and washed away forever.
As we celebrate, it’s important we keep in mind that, although the physical chains of slavery are now gone, the mental and emotional chains of racism that so many of our brothers and sisters are harnessed with, hampered by, day in and day out, continue to wound and tear us apart.
ThoughtLab believes in equality, harmony, and dignity between all races. We celebrate Juneteenth and look to a time when the hearts and minds of our country are united in peace and the last remnant of the sickness that is racism is healed and washed away forever.
