I’m happy Juneteenth is a Federal holiday–but don’t let it be whitewashed

An Op-Ed: We should be happy to popularize and celebrate Juneteenth. But we should celebrate it with the same fervor in which it was celebrated the summer of 2020, with protests, political education, and an understanding that the house of the slavemaster still stands, despite a fresh coat of paint. We must celebrate Juneteenth knowing the kind of force it took for enslaved Black people to attain emancipation – and the equivalent political force it may take to finally and absolutely uproot the American capitalist. Wisconsin celebrated it 50th Juneteenth in 2021 with a long parade up Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, complete with Civil War re-enactors, beauty queens and kings, and Black public servants, among them County Executive David Crowley and Congresswoman Gwen Moore. This city was one of the first in the nation to celebrate the holiday.

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‘This Is About the Preservation of Our Humanity’: Vile Conditions, Racist Rhetoric at Border Facilities

Democrats visiting three detention facilities in Texas on Monday had to raise their voices—despite having microphones—to be heard over the shouts and heckling of pro-Donald Trump, anti-immigrant groups. They pointed to the conditions at the country’s detention centers—which have been compared to Nazi concentration camps—as evidence of a xenophobic and violently negligent environment.

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It’s Juneteenth, and a White Nationalist Is President

With the South rising again on the watch of President Donald Trump, who plans to turn the Fourth of July this year from a celebration of America to a celebration of himself, it’s time for Americans who champion equality to begin celebrating Juneteenth.June 19, 1865 — “Juneteenth” being a combination of June and nineteenth — should remind all Americans of the long and complex fight required to end slavery here.

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Lige Daniels

On August 3, 1920, the body of Lige Daniels, an African-American teenager, hung in the main square of Center, a small town near the border between Texas and Louisiana. The image of Lige on the cover of a lynching pictorial, Without Sanctuary, has received world-wide notoriety since first published by two white Atlantans, James Allen and John Littlefield. These lynching photographs were often made into postcards and sold as souvenirs to the crowds in attendance.

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Grand Jury Declines to Indict Cop Who Slammed Teen Girl to Ground

A grand jury declined to indict a white McKinney, Texas, policeman who slammed a teenage girl to the ground at a pool party. A bystander’s video showed the officer aggressively tossing the 15-year-old black girl to the ground before pinning her with his knees. Casebolt also pulled his gun on two other youths who came running to help the girl.

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