Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday which commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865. Celebrated on June 19, the term comes from June and nineteenth, and is recognized as a state holiday in many states.

 

However, slavery was abolished the new system that came in place for millions of new free man and women was far from equalitarian.  The Unionist did fight for the end of slavery but soon after they betrayed the former slaves putting an end of the effort of the Reconstruction in 1877 with a compromise with them the Democrat Party, allowing the former master class and their values dominate again in the south. Only that explains that by 1870 there was an explosion of black success among them 2 black senators from the areas where Black populations was majority and by 1880s segregation was the new norm for millions of new free man and women.

 

It took almost 100 years for the black movement to accomplish what the Unionist failed to finish: the end of segregation and at least on the paper the end of discrimination. 1964 the Civil Rights Act is signed by Lyndon Johnson. This time the main force that drive the changes were the people affected, thousands, hundreds of thousands of black women and men fight courageously for what was right! Even though Jim Crow was the law and to defiant it was consider Illegal, that could not stop the Rosa Park, Martin Luther King and thousands of the alike who challenge and disobey the current law in order to end it. At the end, the until-then slept giant, the poor and oppressed, become a tremendous force of social change.

 

Martin Luther King who evolved his political conclusions over the course of victories and defeats, he finally understood that the civil rights movement will not end the misery and exploitation of the black people of United states and with them of the millions of poor people of the country.

 

In 1968 MLK launched the campaign for the poor, the new stage of the emancipation of most of the society: the poor and the oppressed. It was not by accident that the last city that saw MLT alive was Memphis during a janitors strike. If in 1865 the end of slavery did not signify the end of suffering, prejudice, over exploitation and discrimination. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act did not bring the basic elements for a decent life.

The coward murdered of MLK as in general the massive repression to the radicalize black community in the 60s and 70s did cut the political and economical advance of the black community and the poor in general.

 

In 2006, the undocumented immigrants get into the pages of history; millions rally in the streets, stopping effectively major sector of the economy and following the best traditions of past social movements like the civil right movement, which are in essence the methods of the masses when they get into in action: massive participation in the streets, factories and schools showing the amazing force that we have when we are organized and determinate for social change and emancipation.

 

In 2010, we have opportunity to finish what many commit their life in the past: to advance the economical conditions of the poor of this country, to put an end to the current form of exploitation and culture of discrimination and racism.

 

That is why in Juneteenth we should shout in unity, workers of all races:

We the poor people of America we demand:

Decent jobs and income

The right of a decent life

Power to the people!

Juneteenth, Civil Right and the Immigrant Movement:

The Unbroken Thread!