Thought For The Day – Thursday 20th June 2024
Juneteenth
Yesterday, on the 19th June, Juneteenth was celebrated in the United States of America and beyond.
This day remembers the final abolition of slavery in the last state in the United States on June 19th 1865 at the end of the American Civil War. This was after slavery was initially outlawed by President Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862, which officially came into effect on January 1st 1863.
Juneteenth is also called Freedom, Liberation or Independence Day. It is marked with food, barbecues, celebrations, church services, parades and games. A most famous dish is called “the Marcus Garvey salad”, named after an inspirational person who stood up against racism, and made with red, green, and black beans. Juneteenth is now a public holiday in the United States of America.
Slavery was, and is, dehumanising, wrong, horrific, violent and evil. The film “12 Years A Slave”, a 15 certificate, shows the evils, horrors and violence of slavery, through the real-life story of Solomon Northup. Here is the age-appropriate trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02Ie8wKKRg
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12 YEARS A SLAVE is based on an incredible true story of one man’s fight for survival and freedom. In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty (personified by a malevolent slave owner, portrayed by Michael Fassbender) as well as …
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Juneteenth would not be the end of the centuries-old pandemic of racism, negative prejudice and discrimination, exploitation and oppression.
Many other fundamental human rights would need to be stood up for. Many other evils needed confronted and changed.
And, though there has been so much positive progress, all negative and evil prejudice and discrimination, exploitation, oppression and dehumanisation, of every form, still needs completely, fully and totally challenged, sanctioned and eradicated today.
