At this day last year, 2022, America got a new Federal holiday: Juneteenth, the day slavery ended in America.
Now what?
What to do?
Many of us have never heard of Juneteenth.
How should we celebrate?
I know how!
I am a historian.
I am 'white' as a sheet. And yet the world I grew up in, the beautiful world of Jim Henson and Steven Spielberg, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles, was founded in part on Juneteenth!
The ending of slavery was a huge, fundamental part of the foundation of the world I grew up in!
We would not have Hippies and Beatniks without civil rights and diversity!
We would not have The Beatles without Chuck Berry and Little Richard!
We would not have Hippies and Beatniks without Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Dizzy Gillespie, for the Beatniks were the modern jazz fans, and these were their leaders- and the Hippies followed the Beatniks!
We would not have Steven Spielberg and Jim Henson without the Hippies and the Beatniks!
We would not have much of Hollywood without ragtime, jazz dance, and the showbiz traditions of 'Black' Vaudeville!
The world I grew up in was founded, in part, on Juneteenth with the ending of slavery!
And that's what we can do on Juneteenth- celebrate with a historian's perspective!
God loves you! Happy Juneteenth!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson