Most Americans have never heard of it, but "Juneteenth" is a celebration which marks the late arrival of the news of freedom in various rural African-American communities in mid-june of 1865, over two years after the official date specified in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the formal surrender at Appomattox Court House. Like Bastille Day, a French holiday which marks the storming of a prison, Juneteenth provides an interesting contrast to the jingoism which has largely destroyed the Fourth of July in modern Amerika.

I think I first read about Juneteenth in my early twenties as I spent two months reading everything I could one summer before I taught fifth grade in New Orleans. One paragraph in particular I recall was the observation that "while the white people celebrated guns, we mostly celebrated each other." What a beautiful day! It is also the title of a novel by the brilliant Ralph Ellison, published posthumously in 1999. As we prepare for the latest coca-colonized pepsi paeans to freedom, I encourage all good people of good will to meditate on freedom and to honor Juneteenth.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
politicalsapphire.blogspot.com/20...tml
exb-louderthanwords.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!48DE7B74C6C950D8!120.entry
quintessentialnegro.blogspot.com/2...ml
www.democracynow.org/article.pl
www.juneteenth.com