Lincoln Missed the First Juneteenth

     When I visited Denver’s Juneteenth celebration a few years ago to enjoy the hand drumming, I had no clue that the holiday carries significance far beyond honoring African American culture. I learned since then that Juneteenth is a shortened form of June 19, 1865. That was the day, two months after the Civil War had ended, that a Union general entered Texas, the most western Confederate state, and publicly announced that “all slaves are free.”     
     Juneteenth is America’s second independence day. More African Americans were freed through the Civil War than white colonists were freed from the Revolutionary War.     
     But let’s be honest, the slaves were only set free-ish. What followed were lynchings and segregation and separate-but-not-equal and the re-emergence of white supremacy. As a country, we’re still reaping the harvest of America’s original sin - racism.     
     Abraham Lincoln missed the first Juneteenth. The great emancipator was assassinated two months earlier. He had proclaimed in his second inaugural address that the Civil War was divine punishment for a national moral debt created by “250 years of unrequited toil.” Since then, I wonder if we have incurred another 155 years of debt, the consequence of our continuing bigotry.     
     I’m as white as a fish belly, so I can’t claim to understand the degradation my black friends have endured. But on this Juneteenth, I honor this significant day.     
     Because under God, we are all created equal.       
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​     Photo: Hernan Pinera, Creative Commons, text added.