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| Emancipation Day Celebration |
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JUNETEENTH
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation
Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the
abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, the term is a portmanteau of June and nineteenth, and is
recognized as a state holiday in 37 states of the United States.[1][2]
As of May 2011, 39 states[1] and the District of Columbia have recognized
Juneteenth as either a state holiday or state holiday observance; these are
Alaska,[5] Arizona, Arkansas, California,[5] Colorado, Connecticut,[5] Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,[2] Kentucky,[6][7] Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan,[8] Minnesota,[9] Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey,[5] New Mexico, Nevada, New York,[5] North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas,[1] Vermont,[1] Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin
and Wyoming.[10]
Though Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with an
effective date of January 1, 1863, it had minimal immediate effect on most
slaves’ day-to-day lives, particularly in the Confederate States of America. Texas, as a part of the Confederacy,
was resistant to the Emancipation Proclamation, and though slavery was very
prevalent in East Texas, it was not as common in the Western areas of Texas,
particularly the Hill Country, where most German-Americans were opposed to the practice. Juneteenth
commemorates June 18 and 19, 1865. June 18 is the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000
federal troops arrived in Galveston,
Texas, to take
possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. On June 19,
1865, legend has it while standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read
the contents of “General Order No. 3”:
The people of
Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive
of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality
of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves,
and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between
employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their
present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be
allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in
idleness either there or elsewhere.[11]
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Father’s day in USA
Father's Day in the United States is on the
third Sunday of June. It celebrates the contribution that fathers and father
figures make for their children's lives. Its origins may lie in a memorial
service held for a large group of men, many of them fathers, who were killed in
a mining accident in Monongah, West Virginia in 1907.
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T he
many sow, but only the chosen reap;
Happy the wretched host if Day be brief,
That with the cool oblivion of sleep
A dawnless Night may soothe the smart of grief.
If from the soil our sweat enriches sprout
One meagre blossom for our hands to cull,
Accustomed indigence provokes a shout
Of praise that life becomes so bountiful.
Now ushered regally into your own,
Look where you will, as far as eye can see,
Your little seeds are to a fullness grown,
And golden fruit is ripe on every tree.
Yours is no fairy gift, no heritage
Without travail, to which weak wills aspire;
This is a merited and grief-earned wage
From One Who holds His servants worth their hire.
So has the shyest of your dreams come true,
Built not of sand, but of the solid rock,
Impregnable to all that may accrue
Of elemental rage: storm, stress, and shock.
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