Today is the 161st Anniversary of "Juneteenth" - the date when institution of slavery (at least for those not incarcerated after due process) in all of North America was finally nominally abolished - when the very last State to have held onto it - the one I live in now, Texas - finally had the last remnants of its Confederate insurrection defeated.
For those that hold onto the so called "Lost Cause" utter bs that the Civil War was "not about slavery" - there are no better counter proofs than the founding documents that the power holders in Texas wrote themselves - Section 9 of the General Provisions of the 1836 Constitution of the Republic of Texas, Article VIII of both the 1845 and 1861 Constitutions of the State of Texas, and The Declaration of Causes for Secession from February 2, 1861. In these documents those Texan power holders write clearly and succinctly that a major priority for them, and the "law of the land" within Texas was the continued enforcement of bondage and slavery of African descendants into the eternal future. As such - on this day is the moment when Texas turned from being a place where the undoubted oppression and authoritarianism of the worst kind was the "legal" policies of the government - to a place where it had at least the potential in word to be actually a place of real liberty. 161 years later and we still sadly have far to go to make that promise of equal enforcement of the law for all to be an actual truth - but here is to working towards that goal - not just here in Texas, but everywhere in the USA.

#juneteenth #politics #history #civilwar #emancipation #freedom #liberty #justice #holiday #celebration