Quote of the Day (Bruce Watson, on Juneteenth)

“The celebration has begun. Some shout and dance. Others fall to their knees and weep. A few freely enter former masters’ homes and put on their clothes. Song. Spirit. Jubilee. And the date goes down in history — June nineteenth, soon shortened to Juneteenth….

“For the rest of the [19^th] century, former slaves remembered. Each Juneteenth, they gathered to share stories, scripture, spirituals. Barbecue and baseball. And until Jim Crow laws arose, Juneteenth featured instructions on how to vote….

“Faced with myth and rising violence, Juneteenth laid low. Only in the 1940s did its embers stir.  Then came the Civil Rights Movement, too busy to celebrate. Finally, in the 1970s, Juneteenth came alive again.”— Editor and biographer Bruce Watson, “Juneteenth!”, American Heritage, June 2020

(The image accompanying this post shows Juneteenth--or, as it was called at this point, Emancipation Day--being celebrated in Richmond, Va., the capital of the former Confederacy.)