Juneteenth is declared a Federal holiday. Read the Associated Press account here: http://bit.ly/JuneteenthAPReport.
“This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take,” -President Joe Biden
The United Church of Christ joins in celebrating and amplifying the commemoration of the independence of the nation’s last group of enslaved Blacks on June 19, 1865, two months after the end of the Civil War, and two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
We are reminded that our legislation and our words, our intentions and conventions, are only part of the story. Like Christ, we may be called to go to the places of oppression and suffering to deliver the news of independence, of freedom from oppression and freedom to be counted equal among creatures in the eyes of God. We are reminded that the empowered humanity we legislate is only realized when we work to deliver one another from suffering.
May God grant us the wisdom to grow from our past evil to our present loving-kindness. May God make us strong enough to act on that wisdom. Amen.