Since I wasn’t even alive in 1968, I’ll defer to Boomers and historians to tell us whether the country was more divided back then or today. In my lifetime, however, I can confidently say that the racial, political, economic, and ideological polarization has never been worse, nor has the violence and outrage been as extreme.
No matter the issue, from public policy to personal morality to global health, people seem to immediately run to their ideological and political corners - no discussion, little charity, less concern about the requirements of a common life together, but a lot of yelling. It’s difficult to imagine a people less able to accomplish a life together than us, with no shared vision and no shared memory.
Tomorrow, however, offers us an opportunity to come out of our ideological and political corners and agree to commemorate a significant day in American history. Every American, regardless of politics or background, should reflect on a day marked in many African American communities for over 150 years.
Tomorrow, June 19th, is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 in which the particularly vicious evil of chattel slavery effectively came to an end in this country.
Here’s the history:
In 1862, President Lincoln issued the most famous executive order in history, known as the Emancipation Proclamation. “…on the first day of January,” read the order, “in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State … in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and forever free.”
With this order, Lincoln only declared the emancipation of slaves within the Confederacy. Pro-Union border states and even areas in the South controlled by Union troops were not “in rebellion against the United States.” Practically speaking, the Emancipation Proclamation was more symbolic than effective.
The surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox in April of 1865 signaled the end of the Confederacy and foresaw the final end of slavery. Even then, however, pockets of resistance persisted. Emancipation would have to be enforced.
In fact, African-Americans in Texas began commemorating Juneteenth the very next year, 1866. As African-Americans migrated north and west, they took the commemoration with them. Though officially recognized in hundreds of cities and in 47 out of 50 states, Juneteenth remained largely an African-American celebration. But now, as of this year, it is a federal holiday.
It’s a day all Americans should commemorate. Juneteenth was the culmination of the efforts of men and women across races and social standings to put an end to a particularly shameful practice on our shores.
Two years ago, my Colson Center colleague Timothy D. Padgett wrote an outstanding column on Juneteenth at BreakPoint.org,. In it, he described how American abolitionists “were driven by the understanding that the realities of American Slavery were irreconcilable to their Christian beliefs about the dignity of humanity and their American dreams about the centrality of liberty. They saw that the slave was as made in the image of God as anyone else and therefore as deserving of honor as themselves.”
Juneteenth 1865 is an important event in our national timeline, an attempt to live up to what Chuck Colson liked to call our American creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
We’ve not yet lived up to that creed. We still have a long way to go. Perhaps remembering Juneteenth together will remind us of the type of nation we say we are, and compel us to keep trying.
I’m going to say it—a book is better than a phone.
Stop me if you’ve heard this: a guy is walking his dog right beside a very busy road and he almost dies because he’s staring straight into, wait for it . . . a book!
You were expecting it to be his phone, right?
If you’re going to risk your life, at least do it for the printed word. We might tell ourselves there’s no difference between reading on paper and reading on a screen. But as Dr. Martin Tobin writes, “Our eyes lie to us.”
“Cognitive scientists have discovered that reading is not only a visual activity, but also a bodily activity,” Tobin writes. “A book is a physical object . . . you see and feel the texture of its pages. Leafing back and forth provides a mental map of the entire text, aiding comprehension …and recall.”
And, of course, when we read a book, we’re not tempted to check email, voicemail, Facebook, texts, and on and on.
So put down the phone. Grab a real book. But avoid traffic when you do so.
This Week on Strong Women
How did Shannon Bream’s persistence lead her to where she is today? Shannon, the host of Fox News at Night and author of The Women of the Bible Speak, shares the story of the women who have influenced her, how she and her husband, Sheldon, met, and how she transitioned from being a lawyer to a news host. Shannon radiates humility, joy, and competence in her daily life and on the air. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN>>
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