Update: This blog was originally written in 2021. As I have matured and grown as a person I wanted to read back and see if my thoughts and feelings changed. Turns it out they did not. I still think celebrating Juneteenth is great. And I still think that learning about it is a good thing and doesn't equal "woke".
So I am reposting this blog check it out:
I want to start this post off by referencing a quote from Mike Pence: "I am a Christian, a Conservative, and then a Republican in that order. I am a very proud American." I have traveled to many countries over the years from mission trips to study abroad programs and there is no country like America. We are incredibly blessed to live in this beautiful country.
Now on to what this blog is about. This discourse around Juneteenth is very interesting to watch. Last year when President Trump tried to introduce legislation some of the Republicans speaking against it now were excited for it. Making Juneteenth a federal holiday was included in Trump’s Platinum Plan for Black Americans. Last year this conversation wasn’t nearly as controversial.
In 1865 the thirteenth amendment, which banned slavery in the United States, was passed in the Senate and House by a Republican majority. The Republican party led the effort in freeing the slaves. (So did many Christians. The Gospel is what changed many hearts to recognize that slavery was wrong.) The Republican Party has ALWAYS been the party of freedom.
Recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday is a win for the Constitution as well. Our Constitution in and of itself is a freedom document. (Of course some of the people who wrote it did not uphold the values it represented, but the document in and of itself is a freedom).
The abolishment of slavery is a GOOD thing. Slavery was wrong. It was evil. It hurt people. Slave owners did not treat their fellow man like the image bearers of Christ that they were. As the party of facts, we recognize that slavery happened and not all slaves were notified at the same time. It is a travesty, but we live in 2021 and recognize that, and look how far we have come. Why would we not?
Juneteenth doesn’t take away anything from Independence Day. It doesn’t change the fact that all of us are Americans. It certainly doesn’t change the fact that I am a proud American. All this holiday does is celebrate that the last people found out they were free and then everyone was truly free. We live in a great country now (of course there are flaws) and we are so blessed to be Americans. What is wrong with celebrating that?
If the people on the left want to turn this wonderful holiday into something it’s not. So what? They have changed the narrative on abortion, but we continue to speak up and tell the truth about it. We speak up and we speak louder. We don’t let them have something that the Republican did. We don’t let them take away from something that was great (the ending of slavery). We don’t let them bully us from celebrating something that is a good thing.
As Dr. Ben Carson said, “It’s memorializing a day when America became A More Perfect Union…”
As NC Lt. Governor Mark Robinson said, “Be it Juneteenth which finalized the declaration of an end to slavery, or the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that ended slavery by law, it was REPUBLICANS who made it happen.”
As Texas GOP Chairman Allen West said, “Happy Juneteenth folks, it’s the day when Blacks in Texas learned that they were free, June 19, 1865 in Galveston…It’s the day when Blacks found out that the first Republican President had signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing them from the physical bondage of the Democrat Party. It was two years later, on July 4th 1867, that 150 of those same Black men met in Houston and established the Republican Party of Texas. The Democrats, in response, established the Ku Klux Klan…Juneteenth is a celebration of why the Republican Party was established in 1854, the abolition of slavery. Only a flaming incompetent idiot would give the party of the jacka** any credit for Juneteenth.”
And as US Senator Tim Scott said, “On June 19, 1865 enslaved Americans in Galveston, TX finally received word of their freedom. As Juneteenth is a commemoration of this date, let it serve as a reminder that all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights such as Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Juneteenth is a celebration for EVERY AMERICAN because EVERY AMERICAN was finally free.
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