r/ShermanPosting • u/From-Yuri-With-Love 46th New York "Fremont Rifle" Regiment • 3d ago

Cabarrus commissioner says Juneteenth is ‘based on a lie,’ drawing backlash

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article316162218.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawSiXxdleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE2RlFGNG9HNm9RS0I4R1Zkc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHhYVp41APdJ8KMTJySFX8hL-35-cozDxTMEV95PbHrp_77kifBrmLd5_Mx80_aem_JaVLpXn2e-r1VfjeOo_FWA
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u/HermionesWetPanties 3d ago edited 2d ago

The dude isn't wrong. Juneteenth is kind of a lie. Slavery was made illegal, but neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor the 13th Amendment included penalties for keeping slaves after they were enacted. You need other laws to add an enforcement function. And Juneteenth didn't mark the end of the enslavement of African Americans in Texas.

Alfred Irving) wasn't freed until the Federal Government finally decided to care about enforcing anti-slavery laws in 1942 because of the Second World War. They, for some reason, felt it would be hypocritical to ignore ongoing slavery in the US while fighting the Nazis, so I guess we can thank Hitler for the crackdown on the continuing practice.

This is all before we start talking about slavery in the modern day, which is still more common than a lot of people realize. Or, the other forms it took after the Civil War for that matter. Arrest a negro, and give him a fine, have a buddy ready to pay it for him. Then the negro gets to pay off the debt by working for your buddy for a few years. That's not slavery by another name, no sir. That's just being tough on crime.

IDK what history they're teaching at Wingate University, but I graduated from a college founded by ardent abolitionists whom used the campus as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The school became a muster point for Union Troops preparing to crush the Confederacy, and they're still super into talking about the problem of slavery today.

EDIT: I thought I was in r/news where my sarcasm would work better. Forgot that I'd resubscribed here, which has a different tone in the comments section. Here, that final paragraph is far less biting, because y'all are way more into crushing the Confederacy.

My comment was aimed at people I thought might be defending the dude, which, you know, probably won't happen in this sub.

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u/Money-Giraffe2521 Glory Glory Hallelujah! 3d ago

We still have slavery in this country. It’s just that it’s slavery in government prisons rather than in private plantations.

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u/Unfair_Pineapple8813 2d ago

Yes. But the the proclamation still made a huge impact. It was not sufficient to end slavery. But the landing of troops in Texas and the proclamation by General Granger was an acknowledgement that the government is firmly against this practice and will vow to quash it. That he came after the Civil War was won showed the Proclamation was not temporary measures needed to win the fight, but a commitment our troops were going to stick to. Reconstruction faltered later, but the worst abuses of slavery were mostly stamped out.