dagblog - Comments for "Juneteenth"

Thanks for this post.Reading

AmericanDreamer — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:13:34 +0000

Thanks for this post.

Reading the Blight book, Race and Reunion, prompted me to wonder "Who will be Obama's Frederick Douglass?"

IIRC, pre-campaign Obama in his writings noted the critical importance of having powerful, compelling outside prompting/pressure, including from extraordinary figures such as Douglass, in making hard and good things happen in a country's politics.

By far the most important person with a last name sounding like "Douglass" in Lincoln's life was Frederick, not Steven. The latter Lincoln had to surpass on his path to power. The former may have enabled Lincoln to surpass himself, the person he otherwise might have been. That is greatness. Oh, and Lincoln embodied greatness as well, in his own ways.

Great, terse to the point

Richard Day — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:53:39 +0000

In reply to Juneteenth

Great, terse to the point take on history.

Wonderful!

Sadly, website "The Root"

rmrd0000 — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:33:07 +0000

In reply to Juneteenth

Sadly, website "The Root" reports that 27 million people worldwide are being held as slaves today.Cases include the recent prosecution of a Nigerian woman who holding fellow Nigerians in bondage and forcing them to serve as servants for upscale homes located in upscale areas north of Atlanta.

http://www.theroot.com/views/modern-slavery-sad-echoes-juneteenth

My Dad used to drag us to

Donal — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:16:50 +0000

In reply to I really didn't spend that

My Dad used to drag us to Civil War battlefields, so I have a "dioramic" view of the War.

I really didn't spend that

rmrd0000 — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 20:13:59 +0000

In reply to Thanks for this.I have to say

I really didn't spend that much time on the Civil War either. It was actually discusions on the Civil at TPM and dagblog that got me reading more about the Civil war era. It was only very recently that I learned that the stories of armed Black troops fighting for the Confederacy were essentially myths.

In a country with history lessons that included George Washington and the cherry tree, it's not surprising that we have gaps in knowledge.

Thanks for this.I have to say

Elusive Trope — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 18:12:11 +0000

In reply to Juneteenth

Thanks for this.

I have to say my American history during this period of time could be better. I know more about the Boer War than I do about the Civil War. I think for most Americans it gets distilled down to: there was a time when some states had some slaves, then there was a Civil War which the Northerners won and the slaves were freed. The End.

Also this is the first time I heard about how African Americans might think about the 4th of July. The ambivalence at best makes sense. And that I didn't grasp this before points to the different perspectives of various communities which exist as a manifestation of the communities' shared history and which is (usually) unknown by the other communities.