The statue and the body were moved in recent years. The Memphis park once held an equestrian statue and the grave of slave trader and Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Tennessee Legislature passed a bill earlier this year making it a state holiday, as well.įestivities there include a multi-day festival including food, music, arts and crafts, and cultural exhibitions in a tree-lined park in the city’s medical district. And Black Americans suffer from significantly worse health outcomes than their white peers across a variety of measures, including rates of maternal mortality, asthma, high blood pressure and Alzheimer’s disease.Īlthough end-of-slavery celebrations are new in many parts of the country, in Memphis, where the slave trade once thrived, the Juneteenth holiday has been celebrated since long before it became a designated federal holiday in 2021. A full 70% of Black adults queried in a AP-NORC poll said “a lot” needs to be done to achieve equal treatment for African Americans in policing. Most Black Americans agree, according to a recent poll. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. Lorn Snow told a reporter as the service was ending. It was important to speak about Juneteenth during Sunday Mass, the Rev. Standing before paintings of a Black Jesus and Mary, Thorne said Juneteenth is a day of celebration, but it also “has to be much more.” And in order to have peace we must work for justice,” John Thorne, executive director of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, said to the congregation at Gesu Catholic Church in Detroit. “In order to have justice we must work for peace. On Juneteenth weekend, a Roman Catholic church in Detroit devoted its service to urging parishioners to take a deeper look at the lessons from the holiday. Monday’s federal holiday commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed - two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the bloody Civil War. “Is #Juneteenth the only federal holiday that some states have banned the teaching of its history and significance?” Author Michelle Duster asked on Twitter this weekend, referring to measures in Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama prohibiting an Advancement Placement African American studies course or the teaching of certain concepts of race and racism. And still others have remarked at the strangeness of celebrating a federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the nation while many Americans are trying to stop parts of that history from being taught in public schools. While many have treated the long holiday weekend as a reason for a party, others urged quiet reflection on America’s often violent and oppressive treatment of its Black citizens. Americans mark Juneteenth with parties, events and quiet reflection on the end of slaveryīy BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS, ED WHITE and ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Pressĭetroit (AP) - Americans across the country this weekend celebrated Juneteenth, marking the relatively new national holiday with cookouts, parades and other gatherings as they commemorated the end of slavery after the Civil War.
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