Juneteenth

Ghosts of Confederates Past

On April 9, 1865, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

After four years of Civil War, with his Army of Northern Virginia practically starving and reeling under the onslaught of Union pressure from Grant’s superior forces, Robert E. Lee had to contemplate the inevitable

TODAY IN HISTORY: The Gettysburg Address

The opening lines are among the most familiar words in our history. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Today is Dedication Day, the date on which Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg [...]

TODAY IN HISTORY: The Fugitive Slave Act

Congress, in its infinite wisdom, often makes bad law. Today is a reminder of that fundamental truth. When: On September 18, 1890, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slave owners to reclaim slaves who had escaped to other states. Why: The Fugitive Slave Act was part of a larger “Compromise of 1850,” intended [...]

TODAY IN HISTORY: “Dream Day”

I know there is a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, honoring the civil rights leader on his birthday. But maybe that honor should have been set on this date instead. On August 28, 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the “I Have a Dream Speech” to a crowd of more than 200,000 people [...]

TODAY IN HISTORY: The “Glory” Charge –Fort Wagner

I did not hear right wing talking head Pat Buchanan’s remarks on African American history the other day on MSNBC. According to an account on the Huffington Post, Buchanan and host Rachel Maddow had a hot exchange during which Buchanan said: “White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the [...]

A Very Dignified Slave Owner

Writing on the op-ed pages of the New York Times on July 7, 2009, David Brooks clearly touched a nerve. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/opinion/07brooks.html His column, entitled “In Search of Dignity,” topped the Times list of most emailed articles and drew hundreds on online comments, many of them laudatory. Brooks used the column to celebrate the good manners, [...]

Juneteenth

Happy Juneteenth! Since 1865, June 19th has served as another kind of Independence Day. It is a day that celebrates the end of slavery in America. On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger informed former slaves in the area from the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston, Texas that they were free. Abraham Lincoln had [...]