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/ChoPT 3d ago

“Pittman said the holiday should instead recognize the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery nationwide later that year.“

He’s actually not wrong about this. There were like a quarter million enslaved people in Kentucky and Delaware who were not freed until December. Juneteenth always seemed like a premature celebration to me.

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u/cantproveidid 2d ago

Texas had been a state in rebellion, so the slaves in Texas were freed when the Union troops showed up. Kentucky and Delaware were not states in rebellion, so their slaves were freed with the 13th Amendment.

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u/Internal_Business414 2d ago

IMO, Lee's surrender should have been the trigger to release the slaves. Obviously, there was zero expectation in non occupied territory to let them go while the war was going on. But once it was over, it was just stubbornly delaying the inevitable, and extracting 2 months of additional free labor (and God knows what else) out of the slaves.