June 19, 2023
By Judy Kurtz
Michelle Obama (click here) says there’s no more “meaningful way” to mark Juneteenth than by registering to vote.
The former first lady made a voter registration pitch Monday in a tweet to her more than 22 million followers that coincided with the federal holiday.
“Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom — a chance to pay tribute to countless advocates, activists, and changemakers and the work they did to build a more perfect Union,” Obama wrote.
“I can’t think of a more meaningful way to honor the actions of so many who came before us than be registering to vote,” she added, including a link to the voter registration and engagement organization that she founded in 2018, When We All Vote....
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900 held in "East Woods" on East 24th Street in Austin
On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, (click here) the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States....
Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation
...By July 1862 Lincoln (click here) had written what he termed his "Preliminary Proclamation." He discussed his thoughts for an emancipation proclamation with cabinet secretaries William H. Seward and Gideon Welles on July 13, 1862, while sharing a carriage ride from the funeral of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton's infant son James. Welles later recalled External that neither he nor Seward were prepared to offer opinions on a subject that Seward thought "involved consequences so vast and momentous," but he agreed with Seward's initial impression that the measure was both "justifiable" and perhaps "expedient and necessary."...
The idea of emancipation is foreign to most Americans. In many ways, considering the times we live in I hope that reality continues. There is no reason to apologize for not knowing a great deal about the emancipation that was the central focus of the Late President Abraham Lincoln's governance. But, it is vitally important that the reality of Juneteenth be a part of our national dialogue. There are people that died for the principle of emancipation. The idea of setting free people to live in equal rights as all other peoples in the USA was abhorrent to those that owned slaves. Today, we are seeing a great deal of threat to those that are not equality the same as religion tends to dictate. There are also lingering issues of racism, prejudice and discrimination in the USA. So, one has to ask if the emancipation profoundly practiced by the Late President Lincoln is fully enacted.
April 12, 1861 – April 9, 1865
January 1, 1863 (click here)
A Transcription
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States."...
Late President Lincoln used the word repression to express the manner in which some would seek to remove freedoms from Americans that were denied their own person in the manner of slavery. The Late President knew fully well that removing freedoms from people can and did take many forms. The Emancipation Proclamation was a document to stop all the measures implemented to remove freedoms from all Americans.
If the Late President Lincoln were alive today, he would be more than disappointed to realize the bloodshed of the American Civil War may have been for not considering the extent there is repressive practices still today. Voting Rights is a clear area of highly repressive acts by state governments. That alone is a fact that exists in the USA today. They are all manipulations of the value the Late President Lincoln wanted most for the people the war was fought to free. It would be still yet years later the necessity of an Amendment to the USA Constitution was necessary. In 1869, the Fifteenth Amendment was passed by law and would be ratified by 1870.
15th Amendment (click here)
Amendment XV
Section 1.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Yet today, regardless of the absolute authority enacted by the people that fought and died to secure emancipation for all Americans we are still witnessing the disgusting practice of repression in many states in this country.
What is it already?
It took more than one amendment to the USA Constitution to address freedom of others and still today, more than a century since the end of the American Civil War, there are still forces that persist to repress SOME Americans from the free expression of voting.
In states like Iowa and Florida there is another form of repression in the way the LGBTQ+ are denied the rights they need to live their lives in peace and prosperity and of all those leading the repression it is the religious that are most offensive.
March 8, 2023
Des Moines, Iowa – The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) (click here) — the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization — condemned the Iowa Senate for passing House File 348, which is their version of “Don’t Say LGBTQ+'' legislation. The bill is a discriminatory attack against the LGBTQ+ community that bans instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-6. The bill would also prohibit schools from providing gender-affirming accommodations for transgender students without parental consent, and would require school staff to out transgender students. The Iowa House passed this bill just days after a record-breaking number of Iowans came to Des Moines to protest the slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced by Iowa lawmakers this year....
May 2, 2017
...New research (click here) from the Center for American Progress shows that LGBT people across the country continue to experience pervasive discrimination that negatively impacts all aspects of their lives. In response, LGBT people make subtle but profound changes to their everyday lives to minimize the risk of experiencing discrimination, often hiding their authentic selves....
What is occurring across the USA was never supposed to exist in any manner that Americans appreciate about freedom. There are large numbers of Americans that know the state legislatures are simply wrong in their focus, but, yet the problems these Americans face still exist.
Whether it be voting equality or equality within society the focus of emancipation of the American Civil War where 620,000 deaths (The number of soldiers who died (click here) between 1861 and 1865, generally estimated at 620,000, is approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.) occurred has yet to be respected in a country that is supposed to practice democracy and freedom.
There is absolutely no reason for any religious based discrimination in the USA. Religious organizations are protected by law and court decision in practicing their faith. This entire focus regarding Americans that are different than the majority is wrong and unethical.
Religious organizations allowed to discriminate based on religion in hiring decisions (click here)
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, or national origin. The act also, however, gives religious organizations an exemption to use religious criteria in hiring “ministerial” employees, such as preachers, youth leaders, and the like.
The practices today that are focusing on minorities in the USA as a means of politics is unlawful and damaging to the American fabric and Americans in general. Most Americans decline to appreciate the hate legislation that manifest in voting rights and/or legislative repression of Americans with differences.
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