Note from Frederick Douglass to Harriet Tubman

After the passage of the 13th Amendment work on the Underground Railroad was done. Black abolitionists like William Still who had kept track of most of the runaway slaves Harriet Tubman and others had brought his way. Still, kept a written record that would surely have gotten him some serious jail time for logging all the stolen property (slaves) he was able to gather their family information from. William Still was one of the few who knew that Harriet Tubman's life had been spared by a sickness that left her unable to accompany John Brown on his ill-fated raid at Harpers Ferry West Virginia.

Frederick Douglass too, was aware of Harriet's risky walks in the dark to transport slaves willing to buy their freedom with their lives and follow Harriet. Douglass and other abolitionists had contributed to the purchase of new shoes for Harriet, and some of those she was shepherding so that they could complete their journey to Canada. William Still would eventually turn all of the information he collected, interviewing runaway slaves, into a book (The Underground Railroad by William Still) that I check out of the library when I was doing my research for my Juneteenth video presentation.

Sarah Hopkins Bradford chronicled Harriet's life story in her book titled Scenes in the life of Harriet Tubman. When the manuscript about Harriet Tubman was complete Harriet wrote to one of her long-time abolitionist friends, Frederick Douglass, to request his testimonial about some of Harriet's exploits on the Underground Railroad. In August of 1868, Frederick Douglass wrote the following letter to Harriet Tubman.




"Dear Harriet---I am glad to know that the story of your eventful life has been written by a kind lady and that the same is soon to be published. You ask for what you do not need when you call upon me for a word of commendation. 

I need such words from you far more than you can need them from me, especially where your superior labors and devotion to the cause of the lately enslaved of our land are known as I know them. The difference between us is very marked. 

Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day – you in the night. 

I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction that comes of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scarred, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt, “God bless you,” has been your only reward. 

The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown – of sacred memory – I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you. 

It is, to me, a great pleasure and a great privilege to bear testimony for your character and your works, and to say to those to whom you may come, that I regard you in every way truthful and trustworthy."

Your friend,

Frederick Douglass.

The freedmen's Bureau

After the Civil War ended in 1865 March of that year marked the activation of Freedmen's Bureau. A few months later words of freedom would finally penetrated the Texas stronghold of Galveston setting off the first Juneteenth celebration in which thousands of former slaves in the south first heard the reading of General Order #3 "The people of Texas are hereby informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free!" When the joy and celebration of the First Juneteenth Celebration finally died down, I can almost imagine the collective Now What, that followed? The newly freed slaves in the south had no land no work and no money. They were forbidden from gather at military forts, and so no real place to go. The general understanding was that the ex-slaves should continue to toil for their former masters only this time as a paid laborers.

Talked about in congress as the bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, the Freedmen's Bureau was the organization put in place to help turn a former slave workforce, with no pay, into and ex-slave-labor workforce, with pay. Enacted by Congress the Freedmen's Bureau was under the authority of the War Department and intended to last the duration of the Civil War plus one year but the agency would operate a lot longer. The government set out to reconstruct the battered south where thousands of newly freed slaves and thousands of former Confederate soldiers had to find a way to live together with thousands of unhappy southern citizens who had, for the most part, lost everything.

First came the 13th Amendment that would abolish slavery everywhere in the U.S., even in the "friendly states" to the union, not included in Abraham Lincolns Emancipation. Next, came the 14th Amendment that gave former slaves, not consider to be U.S. citizens, birthright-legal-citizenship and finally there was the 15th Amendment that gave colored men (not women) the right to vote. The Freedmen's Bureau was where 4 million former slaves would learn about the new amendments and benefits available to them and help the newly freed people make the transition to paid labors, that was the plan anyway.

The reality, however, was that the government-driven southern reconstruction would slow to a crawl when southern lawmakers were welcomed back into Washington DC and began cranking out laws designed to keep the races apart. Colored people could have parks, they just had to be for color people only, unlike in the days of slavery when slaves were forbidden education colored people could now be educated and have schools, the schools, however, had to be for colored people only. Separate but equal was the justification for segregation and in my opinion, were any modern-day reconstruction finally ground to a stop. Many of the rights promised to the newly freed slaves under the constitution in 1865, would not even be available to their colored descendants until the 1960s when segregation was ended.

To this date, there is still debate as to just how effective the Freedmen's Bureau really was? The bureau's powers eventually expanded to assist people with finding family members who had become separated during the Civil War. The bureau also served as a legal advocate in the national and local court for colored people with no other means to represent themselves. The Freedmen's Bureau worked on both sides of the skin color divide to find new ways to work together as employer and employee. Sharecropping would grow from that idea, and that's a whole other post.

I think it could be said that the Freedmen's Bureau was significant became it was the first agency to show this nation's willingness to involve the government in labor relations by working to convince planters and former slave owners to rebuild and to accept their former slaves as paid laborers. The bureau was the first form of social welfare when it came to providing a place for ex-slaves to receive help with learning about the new social and educational opportunities available to them in a post-slavery America.

Under constant attack from politicians, racist, anti-reconstructionist, suffering from a severe lack of funding and pressure, mostly from white southerners, the Freedmen's Bureau was dissolved in 1872 with the institution of slavery replaced by the institution of racism and plenty of work still left to be done.

August 20th 1619

While a lot of us in social media land have chosen to celebrate the last day of slavery in the U.S. the Nation Association for the Advancement of Color People, the NAACP has decided to celebrate August 20th, 1619, which at the writing of this post is just a little over 400 years ago when the first hand full of African slaves taken out of Africa arrived in Port Comfort, British North America.

The almost two dozen African slaves that arrived August 20the, 1619 were the first legitimately documented African slaves in what is now the U.S. even though it's believed that undocumented African slaves were actually in this country even before someone officially logged them in. August 20th, 1619 marked be beginning of a worldwide-cruelty that would last for over 400 years. So let me try to explain why I feel that slavery was a particular type of cruelty to the African race that I would much rather celebrate the ending of, rather than its beginning.

Slaves were a commodity that many different nations traded in, so during those 400 years of slavery in the U.S., the ships participating in the wholesale removal of African people from Africa flew the flags from many different nations. After hundreds of years, the British were among the first to put an end to slavery in Great Britain, the British then joined with others to blockade to west coast of Africa from illegal slave traders, like America, demonstrated a skill at evading the British blockade and continuing to remove generations of young men and women from their African homeland on a scale so vast that even though thousands of slaves lost their lives on the journey to the Americas the slave lives lost were looked at as simply the cost of doing business.

In the end, our ancestors would no doubt be pleased to learn that slavery would eventually be done away-with in the Americas. Something the ancestors prayed for and entertained rumors about but did not live long enough to see.  They might even be surprised to learn that my thoughts about reparations have evolved because after 400 years of being under-appreciated, under-represented, underpaid, and under-educated reparations in the form of opportunities like getting back black-owned farmland seized by the local governments in the south, or reparations in the form of college education and job opportunities where there was once none all goes toward building a stronger America, if you ask me.

And, after 400 years a lot has changed in America; slavery is gone, Port Comfort where the first African slaves first landed in North America today has been renamed: Fort Monroe, in Hampton, Virginia and after 400 years of slavery there are still some things that remain the same with a few minor differences; the chains have been mainly replaced by debt (okay I had to throw that one in) and many of the injustices our slave ancestors suffered from, during slavery, still exist today white supremacy, mass incarceration, and racial violence. So when it comes to celebrating August 20th, 1619 the beginning of slavery in this country and June 19, 1865, the end of slavery in the U.S. they are both important dates, in my opinion.

The Internet of people, places, and things will continue to make it easier for those willing to do the looking/Internet searching to come up with alternate times worthy of celebration by African American people. I would not be surprised if one day some one's Internet search leads them to the first African slave to be put on a ship bound for the Americas, or perhaps it will lead to the first African mother to give birth to the first African slave to reach the U.S. While that future day might still be significant to the beginning of slavery in the Americas, it's the last day of slavery in this country, Juneteenth, that will always be the most significant to me.

Celebrate Juneteenth Every Month

I like the way, Pastor Gwendolyn Thrower from Ocilla, Georgia, thinks when it comes to the Juneteenth Celebration. Her belief is based on the premise until you know and understand where you've been as a race it will be very hard to determine where you're going. She believes that a lot of millennials are not educated on the real meaning behind the oldest African American celebration in the U.S.

It has been my experience to chant with millennials, the ones I raised, and others about Juneteenth and I was surprised to see that they had problems with the facts about even more recent history such as the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther Kings name came up a lot but when it came to an understanding of all the lives lost during the civil rights movement in this country many had no ideas of what it has cost in lives to be able to walk into a voting booth and cast a ballot. And for the African American young, and old, registered to vote, seldom is the African American voter turnout 100%, but that's another post.

Pastor Thrower said that the people who started the Juneteenth Celebration used to go from community to community with the Juneteenth Celebration. Even though the celebration started in June (June 19) because it was a traveling celebration there would be a Juneteenth celebration in June, July, August, September or whenever after the initial start in June.

And to be honest, if I had lived back then I would not have been opposed to traveling, preferably up north, and celebrating Juneteenth in every town along the way, but nowadays most communities are lucky to be able to have a single Juneteenth celebration, once a year. How do you feel about the idea to celebrate Juneteenth every month? I would much rather see an approved educational curriculum that made Juneteenth a solid part of a history textbook used in school classrooms so that everyone will understand and hopefully appreciate what the meaning of the end of slavery and the beginning of the oldest African American celebration in the U.S. meant to our American African ancestors.

So I appreciate Pastor Thrower for speaking out loud about our ancestors who did celebrate Juneteenth once a month. That might be one way to make sure the history and significance of Juneteenth are realized by this entire nation. I think that Pastor Thrower is well-deserving of the Humanitarian Award she was given for helping her community there in Ocilla, Georgia and for her organizing the local Juneteenth celebration there too. I have participated in organizing a Juneteenth even a time or two over the years, but I have to be honest, currently, I can not see having a Juneteenth celebration every month, not with all the organization that is required to get the city, and the local community all on the same page come Juneteenth day.

Luckily for me, most of my Juneteenth organization tasks were from when I worked at Stanford University, not quite a city but for sure a big community. The point is millennials and everyone else still not aware of the significance of what the Juneteenth Day Celebration means to African Americans and the descendants of the abolitionist that helped bring about the end of slavery in this country needs to be learned and passed down to the generations that come after us.  One of the reasons we understand what freedom with regard to this nation is, and still celebrate the 4th of July, is because of that battle for independence cut deep into the fabric of America. Just like southerners caught in the north when the Civil War broke out there was Loyalist who felt they were stuck on the wrong side of the War of Independence and the fight to be free of British rule.

The slaves in this country fought not only in America's war for independence, but they fought just as hard in the Civil War to be free, and the day they received that freedom, Juneteenth, was just as important to our slave ancestors as the 4th of July, only much more personal.   So I say if we don't celebrate Juneteenth once a month I'm grateful for the annual Juneteenth celebrations that continue to educate and entertain us all.

American Colonization Society

The American Colonization Society was made up of slave owners and slave merchants with a few well-meaning abolitionists and some free colored people thrown in for good measure. Why the American Colonization Society was founded was to set up a colony on the west coast of Africa and migrate American slaves to Africa. The American Colonization Society significance was that the colony started by the A.C.S. would eventually grow into the nation of Liberia (Liberia the Latin translation means a free place and is the same root for the English word Liberty) so if the Liberian flag looks a little familiar, this post will share that reason.

I believe the slave owners and merchants were trying to deal with the free-slave problem. Just like not all white people were slave owners, not all black people were slaves. The owners and merchants knew that a few free slaves offered to all slaves and that hope is a dangerous emotion to try to contain. To the slave merchants and owners, the slave was a valuable part of their personal wealth and free labor. Slaveholder could imagine what it would be like if too many slaves were allowed to live free, and own weapons.  For those old enough to remember the stories of the tattered and blown nearly apart sailing-ship that limped into New Orleans carrying the remnant survivors of the slave revolt in Haiti the thought of free slaves with weapons was good enough reason to think that the best place for growing numbers of freed slaves was somewhere out of this country. Pulling together the resources to make it happen the A.C.S was born.

A slave could be freed by purchasing their own freedom, or by purchasing the freedom of a family member. The laws in the south were written so that in many places even a free slave had to pick a local master if they wanted to live free in that county. In the northern U.S. a free slave could live as a free man or woman but because of the color of their skin, and unscrupulous slave hunters even northern "free slave" could be kidnapped and sold into slavery. (See the movie 12 years a slave.) Another way a slave could be designated as free was through something called a Deed of Manumission. Most slave owners who had children by slave women did not want their children to live the rest of their life as a slave. So the children fathered by a slave master could be freed from slavery at some agreed-upon age, like 19 or 20.

Free slaves were looked at as a problem to the slaveholder and merchants, so they worked together to figure out how to deal with the issue of free salves and one of their solutions was the American Colonization Society. Many of the well-meaning abolitionists, and free colored people, that joined the slaveholder and merchants did so because they believed African Americans would never be allowed all of the freedoms granted to white people at that time and that meant slave children being denied an educated.

Some abolitionist bought into the fact that living a life of freedom, in another land, away from the racism and unfair laws in America was the best choice for American Africans willing to accept a ticket from the A.C.S. to live free. Even though most of the African Americans emigrating to Africa had never seen Africa before nor could they speak the African language they still made the choice to take the voyage to be able to live free. In many cases that also meant leaving family behind. The A.C.S. acquired ships and loaded with supplies, American families, and news from home began making regular voyages to the new colony on the west coast of Africa.

The A.C.S. opened offices and set up agents in the African colony to help newly arrived Americans learn about the people, places and things Africa was made of and overtime Africans taught the new arrivals to speak the African language, but more often than not, the new arrivals taught the African people how to speak English. A.C.S. ships continued to bring supplies, more people, and news from family members left behind. The news was not good because of talk about the growing threat of a war between the states. The American emigrants in Africa would eventually forge an uneasy connection with the African people in the land of their ancestors.

The Liberian flag well that is a little complicated. (for me anyway) Liberia is actually made up of several different counties and each county has its own flag. However, all of the country flags incorporate the red, white, and blue canton with a white star in the corner. The flag came into existence in 1847, when on July 16 Liberia Declared its Independence from the American basted A.C.S. With their new independence and their new flag, the Liberians used the American constitution as their template and built a society similar to the one in the U.S. that was, unfortunately, eventually accompanied by many of the same prejudices left behind in America.

News of the beginning of the Civil War, the end of the Civil War, and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln would also make its way across the ocean to the colony of American living on African soil, along with news from their family members still living in America about a new holiday celebration they named Juneteenth to mark the end of slavery in the southern states.

Two years after the end of the Civil War, slavery had been abolished throughout all of the United States and the A.C.S. had delivered over 13,000 American emigrants to the west coast of Africa and the organization would continue to operate until about 1913. The A.C.S. wasn't the only group that decided to offer colored people living in their country a free ride to Africa. The British had a similar society that performed the same task of offering colored people in England a free cruise to the African west coast, and while I don't have the name of their society comparable to the A.C.S. the colony the British started on the west coast of Africa is today know as Sierra Leone.

When I worked with the Coast Guard back in the 80's I met a Liberian Ship captain whose ship was in Oakland waiting on a load of scrap metal. I remember telling them about someone I had met from their country when I was in college and that they had shared with me information about what they called the Americo Liberians and their feeling of superiority over the indigenous Liberian population due to the Americo Liberian belief in Christianity.

I also shared the fact that in my college days almost all of my American friends had changed their American names to African sounding names, making my friend from Liberia the only one of us with the truly American sounding name, hearing about the American students and their interest in African names made the ship's captain smile, I think she was impressed.

Juneteenth Awareness Walk

Other names I have heard used for Juneteenth were Juneteenth Freedom Day or Juneteenth Independence Day. Juneteenth is recognized by many Americans of African descendants as America's second independence day since most of their African ancestors were not free after America celebrated its independence from Great Britain. It would be another 89 years after 1776 before African, and African Americans, still living in slavery, would be able would truly celebrate their independence in America.

Not long after I first learned about the Juneteenth Day Celebration I learned that there was also an ongoing movement in this country to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Over the years since then, I have watched more and more states make Juneteenth an official state holiday. Now that 46 states in this country recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday, a woman from Forth Worth Texas, by the name of Opal Lee, has decided to do a Juneteenth Awareness Walk Detroit where the Democratic Presidential hopefuls will be having their debate to bring attention to her personal campaign to make Juneteenth a national holiday.

The 92-year-old also is no stranger to using her legs and stamina to make her point, she walked a couple years ago in an attempt to get the attention of President Obama and the Congress, back in 2016, and if all goes well Opal will launch a Change.org petition to make Juneteenth a National Day of Observance this coming fall. She will kick off her 2020 campaign to get the Juneteenth legislation passed and put in some more walking miles to achieve her goal.

I believe that making space on the national calendar for this particular holiday (Juneteenth) would go along way toward improving race relations in this country. Just as the first step to solving the race problem is admitting that there is a race problem. The first step of healing the physiological and economic wounds of slavery might just be becoming comfortable with the fact that there was once slavery in this country to begin a national dialogue.

Taught on a national basis it might not be all that bad for people to learn that not all white people had slaves and that not all black people were slaves. Or that for the slave on-the-run not all white people were bad, and not all black people were good. If the Juneteenth Day Celebration becomes a reminder of these things I believe that would be some helpful history. We should be able to learn the history behind people, places, and things that made up America's second Independence Day.

So it goes without saying that I support Opal Lee's quest to bring more attention to making Juneteenth a national holiday. And the fact now that we're up to 47 states officially celebration Juneteenth, with about 5 states to go, it is quite possible that every state in the union will be celebrating Juneteenth as a state holiday and when that happens, even if the lawmakers in Washington haven't made up their collective minds, Juneteenth will be a national holiday.

If you have questions like why is it called Juneteenth, are looking for Juneteenth quotes, Juneteenth food ideas, a Juneteeth flag, or just some friendly Juneteenth facts be sure to see some of the other posts on this blog?

40 Acres and a Mule

When African Americans joined the Union Army to fight in the Civil War the government promised them 40 acres of land and one mule. Back in those days being given a mule was a little like being given a pickup truck. After the Civil War ended and the formation of the Juneteenth celebration black American and African American soldiers tried to claim the land and livestock promised to them by the government and were denied. What followed was a reconstruction that saw a system put in place to make sure that African Americans would own very little in the south.

After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the government's attitude toward the promises made when Lincoln was alive would sour until many of the more meaningful promises were rescinded.  Fast forward a little over 150 years, and a descendant of a Georgian slave and Civil War soldier by the name of Elijah Brown would have his great-grandson take up his cause. Elijah's great-grandson, Abraham Brown, filed a lawsuit against the federal government over the broken promise made to his great grandfather and 1800 other black civil war soldiers for their service in the Union Army during the Civil War.

The lawsuit was filed in 2011 and took until this year, 2019, to be settled. In a Supreme Court vote of 5-4, the Browns were awarded a big win when the Supreme Court ruled that the United States must honor the promise made to union soldiers for their service. Abraham Brown, on behalf of his great grandfather Elijah Brown, was awarded 40 acres and a mule.

The headline on this story really caught my attention, Supreme Court grants Black Man 40 acres and a mule! To be honest I had always thought that 40 acres and a mule were what reparations were all about. So were we always talking about reparations for those who served in the civil war military? Looks like I have some more reading to do. Meantime I will try to keep up with this story, it would be nice to find out what the younger (61-year-old) Abraham Brown plans to do with his 40 acres of land.

I would prefer 40 acres and a Chevy Silverado Pickup Truck because these days the fuel might actually be cheaper, for the truck. I don't think any of us should overlook the history just made by Mr. Abraham Brown and the U.S. Supreme Court. I would encourage the rest of us to look more closely at our family's Ancestors-Dot-Com information to determine whether or not your family name is one of the other 1800 African American families this Civil War promise was made to, there just might be 40 acres and a mule in your future.

Juneteenth Pennsylvania

Hats off to Governor Thomas Westerman Wolf and the state of Pennsylvania for making the Juneteenth Celebration a state holiday. On June 19th, 2019 the State of Pennsylvania joined the growing list of states in this country that recognize Juneteenth as a State Holiday.

When it comes to Pennsylvania and slavery what is now known as the state of Pennsylvania, back in the late 1600s was known as the Delaware Valley. When the Dutch and Swedes first established their colonies there. As early as 1639 slavery can be documented in the Delaware Valley.  It would be the German and Quaker immigrants that would speak out against slavery back then and they would be joined in their slavery protest by the Methodist and Baptists whose preaching to the slaveholders would fall upon deaf ears for the next few hundred years.

After the American Revolutionary War in 1776, the Gradual Abolition Act would be passed in Pennsylvania. The 1780 law established that children born to a slave mother after the year 1780 would be born free. The way the Gradual Abolition Act was written offered a brand of freedom that took effect at the age of 28 years at which time children born to a slave mother were to be set free after years of indentured servitude.

The abolition of slavery was celebrated in Pennsylvania in 1865 when the news about the end of slavery finally went public in the north and in the south and appeared in all the news media available at that time. From that day on, up to and including the state's 154th celebration of Juneteenth the state of Pennsylvania has celebrated the Juneteenth tradition. The 2019 Juneteenth Day Celebration stands out because this year the celebration was made into a state holiday; ensuring that Juneteenth history and tradition will continue to be recognized and passed on to future generations of Americans.

What was celebrated at the time as the end of slavery in the south was soon followed by a celebration of the passage of the 13th Amendment which plugged the loophole in the Emancipation Proclamation (to free all the slave in confederate held areas) by formally abolishing slavery throughout all of the states, north, and south.

So thank you Pennsylvania, from the Juneteenth Day 1 Blog, for becoming yet another state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday, and for 154 years of keeping the Juneteenth tradition alive. There is still a move on to make Juneteenth a national holiday and it seems to be happening one state at a time.

The Juneteenth Awakening

The Juneteenth Awakening, when was your awakening to Juneteenth? When did you first learn about the Juneteenth Day Celebration? I would venture to guess that if polled at least 75 percent of black Americans still haven's heard about Juneteenth, and if I increase the poll audience to include everyone, black and white the number of people unaware of Juneteenth history goes up closer to 80 or 90 percent. You would think that such an important historical event would have been front and center in my school history book, but, when I was a child Juneteenth was not mentioned in my elementary, Jr. High, or High School history book and for sure it wasn't a subject covered in any of my history classes up to and including college.

It's really easy to suffer from the feeling of entitlement and superiority when you grow up believing that you/your race has invented, created, discovered, and built everything on earth. Especially when those promoted facts are presented in the history books you go to school to learn from. Luckily in this day and age, historic facts about African and African American accomplishments are starting to leak out and nowadays that also includes information and facts about the Juneteenth Day Celebration.

In my case, I really can't put all the blame on the places of education I have attended over my lifetime. Both of my parents were from the south one from the very state where Juneteenth was memorialized on June 19, 1865. I had always heard that my parents left the south for a better life, but I had always thought that meant moving from the farm to the big city, when in reality what those words really meant was not wanting to raise their children in the Jim Crow south. (thank you, aunt Opal, for that info)

The fact that the work was plentiful, and paid better during WWII was also a BIG PLUS. Juneteenth may have come from the south (Texas) but during the 50s and the Civil Rights 60s, Juneteenth Celebrations were held to a minimum, if at all. Whatever their reason my parents, who were from Juneteenth country, never mentioned the Juneteenth celebration to any of us children.

So my Juneteenth Awakening would be almost 38 years in coming. Prior to that, I would certainly have failed the poll question: "have you ever heard of the oldest African American Celebration in the nation Juneteenth?"

My hope is that as more Americans become aware of the Juneteenth Celebration and that the celebration celebrated by some states becomes a national holiday. Juneteenth history should be taught in schools so that generations of black and white Americans will be made aware of the sacrifices and plight of the African ancestors so that all of their African descendants still suffering from racism will not only remember their struggle but learn how to better use some of the advances African Americans have already made and as a nation go after racism the same way this nation went after slavery.

I also hope that our history doesn't forget about all of the white abolitionists who were instrumental in putting an end to slavery by maintaining the underground railroad that transported runaway slaves to freedom until it was no longer needed for the clandestine system and for helping to create the oldest African American Celebration in this nation, Juneteenth.

A Slave Ship Captain

John Newton Clark is one of the people I noted in my Juneteenth Handbook. As a child young Newton was placed in a divinity school by his mother where they lived. His father was a ship's captain and lived his life at sea. Rebellious in his youth John had often spoken against and engaged in heated arguments about the church and religion in an attempt to break free from the path he felt was chosen for him. After his mother died suddenly his father returned from the sea and took his son John to sea with him where the younger Newton grew into his teens as an accomplished sailor and skilled navigator.

When John Newton was old enough he was pressed into military service on one of Great Britain's Royal Navy Man-of-war sailing ships. Perhaps being more accustomed to giving orders, than taking orders, John Newton found it hard to adjust to the militaristic no-nonsense way of handling a ship and he deserted the British Royal Navy. Living on the run until he was captured a John Newton in his early 20s was sentenced to serve on board a British Merchant Sailing ship engaged in the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade. Onboard, the slave ship with none of the polish or organization of the Royal Navy Fighting Ship he had once served aboard. John witnessed first-hand the inhumane treatment of the ship's human cargo, the African Slaves.

He soon came to realize that as bad as his sentence for desertion was his cramped crews quarters, second rate food, and officers who seemed to show little mercy to a Royal Navy deserter, what he saw being done to the captive people on board the slave ship, the animal conditions in which the African men and women were chained and quartered, the slop they were fed and the misuse and abuse visited upon them by the ship's crew, in some cases, for the mere act of being sick, John realized that as bad as his lot in life was at the time, there was truly a worse condition if your skin was black.

When his time onboard the slave ship was done, it was British custom at the time that, whatever port his ship found itself in after he had served his sentence for desertion, that was the port in which he would be discharged. John Newton found himself marooned on the west-coat of Africa without a ship, and without his country. The abandoned British sailor was able to find employment with a slave trader, however, he was distrusted, and disliked, by the slave merchant’s African wife and soon found himself living and eating with the slaves.

He would remain in Africa until a crew member from the British sailing ship Greyhound spotted the unusual sight of a white man working alongside the slaves. In an act that, John Newton would forever view as an act of mercy he was given passage on board the ship and returned to England. During the long ocean voyage home, John Newton found the book Imitation of Christ, by Thomas A. Kempis, and as his shipboard hours past he recalled the brutal conditions imposed upon him having his freedom taken from him and he took from the book the seed of Christianity that began to renovate his soul.

Maturity stilled the uncertainty of his youth and John grew as a Christian. It wasn’t long before his life’s experiences helped him get promoted to the rank of ship’s master, a master of his own ship, a slave ship. It was during his days as a slave ship captain sailing the Atlantic that his newfound Christian beliefs often clashed with the act of slavery that was now his livelihood. The slave trade was acceptable in England in the middle 1700s; slave commerce filled the British need for American goods like Tobacco and cotton.

Deeply troubled by the inhumane aspect of the slave trade John Newton found himself at an impasse that would finally result in his decision to leave the sea, where he had grown up, and that had been his home for most of his adult life. Attitudes about the slave trade were more than three hundred years slow in changing but the British would eventually outlaw the trading of people as slaves in 1807; going so far as to set up blockades along the African coast to enforce their controversial new policy. In 1808, more than fifty years before the Civil War, an act of the U.S. Congress would make it illegal to continue to import slaves from outside of the Americas. American navy ships would join the British navy to strengthen the blockade against the transatlantic slave trade.

After giving up his life at sea and his career as a slave ship's captain John Newton returned to the ministry. As a child, John Newton had chosen to ridicule Christianity and had been adrift from his religion for decades. To pay his bills Newton found work as a tide surveyor and after completing his study for the ministry he would spend the last forty-three years of his life promoting the gospel in London and Olney England. Giving thanks for what he felt was the undeserved mercy and favor from a merciful God. During his lifetime, John Newton wrote many hymns but none were more popular than the one he titled Amazing Grace, in 1770.

AMAZING GRACE, HOW SWEET THE SOUND THAT SAVED A WRETCH

LIKE ME

I ONCE WAS LOST, BUT NOW AM FOUND WAS BLIND, BUT

NOW I SEE

TWAS GRACE THAT TAUGHT MY HEART TO FEAR AND

GRACE MY FEARS RELIEVED

HOW PRECIOUS DID THAT GRACE APPEAR THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED

THROUGH MANY DANGERS, TOILS, AND SNARES I HAVE ALREADY COME

TIS GRACE HATH BROUGHT ME SAFE THUS FAR AND GRACE WILL LEAD ME HOME

Where the slave ship captain turned-servant-of-the-church tombstone rest there is an inscription on it that reads:

“John Newton Clark, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”

Why American Black Women Don't Like to Breastfeed?

Do African American women still suffer from misguided beliefs about their bodies? Can a mistrust or repulsion be passed down through generations without any conscious reason why? I asked this question because of something I read recently that spoke of women who breastfeed their babies versus those who don't and found it interesting that where 80% of Hispanic women breastfed their child, and 79% of white women breastfed their babies only about 59% of African American women breastfed their children. Since I have read somewhere once that breastfeeding made for a stronger bond between mother and child my interest stimulated me to investigate further, and some of what I learned is in this post.

While what I learned may not come as a surprise to a lot of people it was all pretty shocking to me. I thought back for as far as my memory bank would go and realized that I had never seen my mother breastfeed, neither had I witnessed any other breastfeeding relative with-child in my family. My wife back when she was having children collected her breast milk but as far as I can remember made no attempt to breastfeed. Over the years, and especially when I was doing research about slavery I came across many pictures of black women breastfeeding white children and soon came to learn that during the days of slavery it was pretty common for a slave women to be made to give up her milk.

My memory is a little cloudy about which breast but I remember reading that one of her breasts was for the white child and the other for the slave woman's own child; and that there could even be punishment handed out for allowing a child to feed on the wrong breast. I realize that back in the day, say fifty or sixty years ago, breastfeeding may have been a little more common for African American women especially in the rural areas, and that over time improvements in baby bottles and baby formula could make bottle feeding your baby more attractive.

Today I hear about and read about women fighting for the right to breastfeed whenever and where ever they want and have become aware of several maternity clothes makers, from my online fashion store, that makes tops capable of allowing a mother to breastfeed pretty much on the go, but none of the women I saw and who were interested in those new maternity garments were black. Without any other supporting data, I realize that my conclusion doesn't really amount to much, but my concern is really whether there is a connection between black women being forced to give up their milk at one point and the fact that breastfeeding just doesn't seem to appeal to the majority of today's black women.

I do know that many of the older African American women that I am aware of do discourage breastfeeding. So much so that the only black woman I was able to gather some breastfeeding information about (see the link to the breastfeeding article below) said she didn't mind breastfeeding but she could not do that at her aunt's house. So now I am on the search to learn exactly where the negative press about breastfeeding comes from. Could negative feeling about breastfeeding in the black community be coming from something forced on black women so long ago? Or is it as the girl, forbidden to breastfeed her child at her aunts because as her aunt put it, breastfeeding was just too nasty?

I realize that there can be many other contributing factors like a lack of time, a lack of privacy, or the lack of desire to breastfeed when the bottle is so quick and handy but wouldn't it be mind-blowing if negativity injected into the African American woman's psyche hundreds of years ago has, somehow, been getting passed down from generation to generation?  I think so. What are your thoughts?

2019 Juneteenth Day Celebration

Back in 1863 when Abraham Lincoln wrote his Emancipation Proclamation that contained the words "I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states, and parts of states, are, and henceforth shall be free" he intended the news within his proclamation to be heard by all of the slaves in the southern U.S. Southern slave owners, slave merchants, and newspapers did not share that good news with the slaves.

Word still managed to reach some of the slaves in the south, but the unbelievable message was treated more as hearsay and rumor, until June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger assumed jurisdiction over the state of Texas and in his reading of General Order #3 confirmed to the large slave population gathered there in Galveston Texas that the hearsay and rumor of freedom whispered amongst the southern slaves about Abraham Lincoln's words of freedom were true bringing to an end two-and-a-half-years cruel doubt and secret rumor.

The joy and jubilation experienced that day by our African and African American slave ancestors would mark the first celebration of Juneteenth. Juneteenth Day Celebration is now celebrated thought out the U.S. and in many places on the date of June 19th.  One of those places, out here in California, will be the former black township of Allensworth California founded in 1908. The all-black town started by Colonel Allen Allensworth no longer exists as it once did in the early 1900s. The township has been turned into a State Park operated nowadays The Friends of Allensworth Association and the California Parks and Recreation Department.

Allensworth is a neat slice of African American history in my opinion that mixes well with the Juneteenth Day Celebration. Not only because of the town's place in African American History but because of its State Park status and ability to host a lot of people. I think that makes the historic town of Allensworth a great way to answer the question of how to celebrate Juneteenth. The town and the towns creator, Colonel Allen Allensworth are both significant representations of African American history. Juneteenth to me is about family and celebrating the freedoms our African, and African American ancestors did not live long enough to enjoy. The Juneteenth Day Celebration is also a great teachable moment in the lives of our children and a chance for you to share your Juneteenth knowledge with anyone you run into that is looking for more information about the Juneteenth celebration, or the Juneteenth flag.

I have often tried to imagine what it would be like to invite one of my slave ancestors from the distant past here to the present day and time where we all live today to see what they might say and think the progress African American people have made since the end of slavery?  Would they be surprised to see that the KKK is still alive and well, and still working in government? Would they be able to comprehend that our last president was a black man with a white mother? Would their minds be totally blown by my flat-screen-television; or the fact that people on the TV-screen were talking about paying millions of dollars for both black and white sports figures?

These are not the kind of thoughts that keep me up at night but they do sometimes come in handy when I'm working on a screenplay. I realize that it would be a disaster for me to try and explain all of the above to a slave ancestor, our lifetimes would just be too far apart. When I celebrate Juneteenth I am always mindful of the sacrifices the Africans who came to America against their will centuries before I was born, and for the ones that I know did not complete the middle passage. My hope is that their spirit has long since been freed to return to the motherland. I also celebrate for all of the African Americans, like me, who were born here, in America, and who have never known the motherland of my ancestors first hand.

Those ancestors were the reason I titled my documentary A Time to be Remembered, a Juneteenth Story in the hope that neither the enslaved nor the history that surrounded them will ever be forgotten. Because a history that is forgotten is doom to be repeated, I remember reading someplace, and because slave families were often sold apart from each other during the days of slavery making the celebration of "family" a part of the Juneteenth Celebration just makes sense to me.

Also, while Juneteenth is thought of as a celebrated for black people and the end of slavery it should also be remembered that there were plenty of non-black people who had good reason to celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S. too. The majority of people who ran and maintained the clandestine system of secret trails, safe-houses, and hideouts that made up the underground railroad were white, Indian and other non-black nationalities. I believe that their contributions in the battle to end slavery in America should not be forgotten in, the end of slavery celebration we call Juneteenth.

Juneteenth Greeting Cards

Juneteenth Day Celebration Greeting Cards that feature my new North Star Design and a few more Juneteeth Greeting cards options to help you celebrate this year's Juneteenth Day Celebration. There are for just about every other celebration held in America, cards that mark a special time, date, and special places. I believe Juneteenth Day Celebration cards should be among them as a way of keeping the important history behind this celebrated alive. My latest Juneteenth greeting cards hold message from the past that reaches out across the ages to tell about the sacrifices of so many, so long ago, the African Americans, and the none African American abolitionist who today enjoy the freedoms the message makers that I quote would not live long enough to witness.

Juneteenth Day 1 Thank You Card
by FourBusiness

Juneteenth Progress Thank You Card
by FourBusiness

June - JuneTeenth Card

Juneteenth Card

Happy Juneteenth Holiday Card

Juneteenth

My Father Is My Role Model All Season Card

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors Note Card

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New Juneteenth Handbook Facebook Group

I have created a new Juneteenth Handbook Facebook Group page and you are invited to join with me and others to discuss and share information about the Juneteenth Day Celebration and its history. The New Facebook Group is looking for members willing to share their Juneteenth knowledge and Juneteenth stories to build a knowledge base about Juneteenth and the way different people celebrate the oldest African American celebration in the U.S.

Back when I worked at Stanford University at SLAC (the Stanford Linear Acceleration Center) I was part of an organization that set up the Juneteenth Day Celebration each year. Of my over 35 plus years at SLAC, there was a time when I first became aware of the Juneteenth Day Celebration and that resulted in my participating in the celebration the last 10 years of my employment SLAC. There were bands, T-Shirts, good food, friendly people and almost always someone there who was learning about the Juneteenth Day Celebration for the first time the way I did 10 years earlier.

The job I had at the television station where I first heard all the details behind Juneteenth, didn't celebrate Juneteenth. The thing that stuck with me when I did first become aware of what the word Juneteenth meant was that Juneteenth is "the Oldest African American Celebration in the United States." I remember thinking how could I not know about the oldest "African American" celebration around? History was one of my favorite subjects when I was in school so I found it highly unlikely that I had read over that important fact and not filed it away in my memory bank.

In the end, and after a little research, on my part, it turned out to be a relief realizing that I had not read past an important black history fact. The oldest African American Celebration in this country (the U.S.) truly had never appeared in any of the history textbooks I had studied in. Like I tell most of my friends my knowledge is history especially as it relates to slavery came from the years BC (before cable). The Internet is a great source of information nowadays but since not all the information I have come across that relates to Juneteenth and slavery has been reliable it helps to have more than one source of information about a Juneteenth/slavery question.

If you have anything you would like to share about the Juneteenth Day celebration, like how that day is celebrated where you are, or how you first became aware of the Juneteenth Day celebration please feel free to share that information to this new Facebook Group. 

The African Religion

In West Africa, where most of the slaves involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade came from, the religion of Vodun was practiced by at least 30 million people in Ghana, Togo, and Benin. Vodun, with its, numerous deities, spirit possessions, and animal sacrifices is one of the African religions that has, in my opinion, become the most misunderstood religions on this planet. In the eyes of people who bought and sold slaves the concept of paganism was used to justify the enslavement of African people and to separate them from their original religion.

In the Americas, the African religion of Vodun was renamed Voodoo and scorned by the none Vodun believers, made up of European and colonial slave owners and colonial slave merchants. The slave owners sought to do away with the ritual and tradition associated with the African religion and to perform a Christian conversion of their growing population of enslaved African people to the more refined and documented religion of Christianity. Over the years many slaves did let go of their religious umbilical connection to the motherland of Africa and grew apart from their religion that emphasized a more harmonious balance between the spiritual world and nature.

For a time many of the newly converted Africans still found ways to incorporate some of their African rituals into their Christian beliefs and in the South American places where they were left to practice their brand of Christian mixed with African religious way some of their African religious roots can still be found today. In North America, just about all of the African religious roots have disappeared, by separating the African American slaves from their cosmologies, rituals, and rites that they still clung to. Gone were their cultural expression, in song, dance, stories, and knowledge of the healing arts. As a result, Vodun turned Voodoo, continued to be demonized by the promoters of Christianity who viewed Voodoo as mere superstitions, that without a written text, was considered worthy only of being labeled heathen, and looked upon by the Christians as idolatry.

In fact, s variety of polytheistic religions had existed on the African continent for example, for centuries the African continent had fallen under Islamic influence so, in fact, not all African religions were without documentation (or written text) and not all the Africans shipped to the Americas were unable to read. The majority of African slaves may not have been able to read English, but many could read Arabic. Sprinkled throughout the colonies were small groups of practicing Muslim Africans that had a tendency to be pointed out by the slave merchants as exceptional slave labor groups. During the early part of the nineteenth century, a larger number of Islamic slaves would end up in northeast Brazil than all of the colonies and it would be the Muslim slave's that would provide a greater source of trouble and discontentment for their owners.

Portuguese missionaries had actually introduced European Christianity in places on the African West Coast in the fifteenth century making some slaves familiar with Christianity even before they were robbed of their freedom. The Old Testament spoke of the condition of the enslaved and nurtured within those slaves listening to the words of the bible the belief in future equality and freedom. Many of the slaves converting to Christianity would come to visualization Christianity as a possible way to freedom, and as more of the slave population converted to Christianity slaveholders came to the realization that one day the Christianization of the slaves might lead to a demand of emancipation.

In a way, the slave owners were right freedom was a word those who owned slaves didn't want to hear when it came to their slaves but eventually members of the churches, Quakers, Abolitionist, and American Indians would begin assisting slaves who would choose to emancipate themselves. Word had reached many slaves in the colonies that in Florida the Spanish held out the promise of freedom as a reward to any slave willing to undergo conversion to Christianity; which prompted the 1667 law passed in Virginia that stated conversion to Christianity did not change the status of a person from slave to free. As evangelicals and preachers drew more and more Africans born in America into the chapels and churches in North America their Christian conversion would just about do away with the religion brought to North America by the enslaved Africans. Through it all, some African descendant with the desire to hold on to the old African beliefs changed and adapted to their worship to their new circumstance.


That's why in places where the African descendants were given their own social space remnants of the old African religion can still be found in distinctive local forms like Santeria in Cuba, Voodoo in Haiti, Obeah and Myalism in Jamaica. These religious holdovers from Africa the stories, song, dances, and African religion are not to be feared in fact, it would not hurt for everyone, Christians included, to try and understand the religions forcible exported here hundreds of years ago. For those African beliefs still practiced on this continent, remember they are the last vestiges of the few possessions the African Ancestors taken from Africa were allowed to bring with them.

Honoring the African Ancestors

Back when the author Alex Haley documented the journey of his family roots, from Africa to a slave ship, to the Americas and the slave auction block. The unfolding of that information led him on a journey of adventure that he would eventually transform into his book titled Roots. With the help of Ancestors-dot-com, I was driven to learn more about my own family's African-American roots. I have to admit that my journey in search of my family's roots has been bewilderingly exciting. I have learned that you will need some C.S.I., investigative skills because you will have to overcome some of the family stories you have grown up with in order to embrace some of the cold hard facts that have a tendency to appear before you in the US census reports from long ago. A good example of this is while exploring my mother's side of the family things seemed pretty straightforward. There was an ancestor by the name of Celie, just like the character name in the movie Color Purple (I kid you NOT) who was a slave. She was given to the slave owner's daughter as a wedding present and from Celie, I was able to track solid family connections from 1855 to the present time.

My father's side of the family needed all of my detective skills which were very close to zero. But persistence and a lot of luck paid off. My father's side of the family just seemed to pop into existence with no prior history that was until I finally ran across a census report where I found all of my father's family names as they appeared on a later census only on this census the entire family was listed as white. Tracing that family line back from the time my father's family first appeared in my research filled in all the blanks. My search was based on all the information I had collected from older family members, many of them now deceased never revealed anything about a mixed family. I realized that I was looking at something about our family that none of us knew. It appeared that my grandfather was Caucasian, and for as long as he was alive the family was listed in the census as white. After he passed away the same family unit (with everyone a little older) was changed from white to colored at the point my father's family first appeared on my radar. All of my Ancestor' dot com drama is why I appreciate what Alex Haley was able to do. I put a pin in it and moved on with my research.

I remember looking at a map of Africa and thinking what a monumental task it must have been to backtrack hundreds of years in search of a family line beginning. Alex Haley went on to transform his Book Roots into a television special that kept people (like a younger me) glued to their television screen every night the televised drama, Roots, was shown. Almost every A-List actor in Hollywood, black and white, wanted to be part of that history-making television production. Aside from showing the horrors of slavery; the mood of this nation toward slavery in the 1800s and the plight of African people born in America at that time, the overall story of Alex Haley's Roots displayed a strong emphasis on family, along with the drive and desire not to forget where you had come from, or all those that had come before you.

To the lead character, Kunta Kinte, Africa was his home, and while he never got the chance to return to his home the African country and its region would not be an alien place to Kunta Kinte had he found a way to get back home. He understood the language, culture, and landscapes. Fast forward a few hundred years and African Americans born on this continent were forced to give up their language, their culture, and their religion are familiar with a new language, (English) a new culture, and a new religion (Christianity). When I was in college (back in the black power 1960s) I remember several of my activist friends talking about going back to Africa, even though they were born in the U.S., for at least two of them that experience led to disappointment, the couple one man, one woman that made it to Africa were not there for a year before their desire to return to America soon outweighed their desire to live in Africa.

One of the major effects of Alex Haley's book Roots was a giant surge in ancestor research by thousands of people from every nationality and most likely the cause of the growth of places like Ancestors dot com. The African people who came to the Americas as slaves were transformed from African culture to their new way of living over hundreds of years. Today just about the only trait African Americans have that relates to Africa is our skin color which is one of the reasons I tell the story of William and Rosa Bella Burke in my Juneteenth Handbook. The Burke's reminded me so much of my college friends determined to return to a motherland they had only read about or seen on television or in motion pictures.

Their experience was much like that of William and his wife Rosa Bella, two slaves who were set free by their master Robert E. Lee prior to the Civil War. They were African Americans separated from Africa by generations but when offered the chance to go to Africa, at the expense of their former master Robert E. Lee, they said yes. Assisted by the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) the Burkes moved their entire immediate family from the U.S. to Africa because, as Rosabella put it, she wanted her children to grow up free. Upon arriving in the tiny coastal colony on the west coast of Africa, started by the A.C.S., would later grow into the Nation of Liberia. The Burke family settled into the African way of life and were immediately introduced to some of the harsh differences that went along with relocating to a new land.

Like my college friends, neither William nor Rosabella spoke the African Language, and few of the Africans that worked with the A.C.S. spoke a little English but this didn't help the built-in animosity between Africans and the newly arrived African American beginning to arrive into the tiny colony promoted by the A.C.S. William began taking some of the African people into his home, and sharing what little he had with them. He began teaching English to the African people he reached out to and with Rosabella, they worked to feed, clothe, and teach the African people around them. As time passed William started a church and it was during those troubled times that Rosabella continued to communicate with Mary Curtis Lee, the wife of Robert E. Lee. Many of their correspondence would be published in the 1859 edition of the American Repository. The women shared news of what was happening in their respective countries, Mary Curtis Lee told Rosabella of the growing talk of a war between the states.

Rosabella sent messages that told of the struggle involved in her family's slow and sometimes painful assimilation into African culture, she shared news of the people, places, and things she and things that she and her family had to deal with on a daily basis. Rosabella asked Mary Curtis Lee to pass messages on to her and William's family members still living in the area. Even though William and Rosabella Burke had little in common with the people in their new surroundings except for the color of their skin, unlike my college buddies, they would eventually make the transition to living outside of the U.S. In one of the messages from Rosabella, Mary C. Lee learned that Rosa Bella was expecting her first child born in Africa, and Rosabella was given the news that there was a war going on between the states.

"I love Africa," Rosabella wrote in one of her letters to Mary, "and I would not change it for America," she added.

The Burkes would eventually make Africa their home and because of her friend in America, Mary Curtis Lee, she and her husband William would be kept up-to-date about the war going on between the states an entire ocean away. Rosabella Burke would give birth to her first baby born free in Africa, a baby girl that she would name after her friend and former slave owner in America, Mary Curtis Burke.

I have come to love the study of history, in particular, black history.  I have found learning about America's past with regard to slavery, the trade triangle, and people removed from Africa to be worthwhile history. In a way, it was following the slavery history trail that eventually steered me to the history behind the creation of the Juneteenth Day Celebration.

In fact, I had gone to visit my mother who was from Texas to get information about her feelings about the Juneteenth Day Celebration and to see what she remembered of the celebration from when she was younger?  But when I found her sitting in solitude at my brother's house in Oakland CA. the subject changed. I learned from her that her most recent stroke had taken away her ability to write and that she was feeling down because when she could have taken the time to sit down and put her story into words life had often gotten in her way. I was able to lift her spirits by volunteering to write her book for her, which is another reason I spent so much time on Ancestors dot com.

After interviewing her for as much detail as she could recall, I wrote her book for her, over that summer I wrote, giving my mom the writer's credit, and by the New Year, her book Faye was published. I had a rubber stamp of her signature made so that she could sign her book for family members. Before she passed away a few years later she told me, the real reason she wanted to get the book done. One of her grandchildren (probably mine I'll bet) was having a conversation with her about the library, and in her attempt to explain to her grandchild's inquisitive little brain, she made the comment that you could find anything in the library. To which the child responded that he was going to check out the book about our family so that he could read all about the family members that came before him. In the end, I never did get to have that deep Juneteenth Day Celebration conversation with Miss Eunie Mae about growing up in Texas and Juneteenth.

Luckily for me today the Internet is a great place to look for facts especially where they relate to the trans-Atlantic slave trade up to and including Juneteenth. What you do with those facts is up to you. Use them to track down Ancestor dot com leads on your family root connection to Africa, or do what I did and turn some of your research findings into an educational presentation about slavery.

The thing that is foremost in my thoughts when I think about celebrating Juneteenth is that just like the Hebrews who came to celebrate their deliverance from slavery with the Passover celebration. Liberated slaves here in America celebrated their freedom from slavery with the Juneteenth Day Celebration. I celebrate Juneteenth Day in honor of all those who did not live long enough to know the freedom that they prayed and fought for.