Let's Talk About It With Myeka: Juneteenth Celebrations

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.  However, it was issued during the Civil War in which the Southern States were in rebellion. Many States did not immediately free those they held in bondage until years later.  Juneteenth is a festival held annually on the nineteenth of June by African Americans especially in the southern states to commemorate emancipation from slavery in Texas on that day in 1865. It signifies the emancipation of the last remaining enslaved persons in the United States. On June 19, 1865, two months after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House in Virgina, Union General Gordon Granger and approximately 1,800 Federal Troops arrived in Galveston Texas to take control of the state and enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. General Granger issued this order: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free." Today our guest, Cassiopeia Uhuru discusses the upcoming Juneteenth Celebrations being held June 15 and 16, 2018 in Chicago organized by TheBlackMall.com, and the significance of the last enslaved person being finally freed. What will our communities look like when the last person suffering under the bondage of psychological slavery, manifested as inability to cooperate with others in order to build our own institutions, is finally free?