rjoeholl

47 out of 57....not too bad.

Smedley_buzkill

You aren't very familiar with the Emancipation Proclamation, are you? First off, it was issued on January 1, 1863, and it was never anything more than a political ploy.
The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to areas of the Confederacy which were unoccupied by Union forces, where it was ignored. There were FOUR s***e states that elected to remain in the Union. These four states contained about 250,000 s***es who were excluded from the Proclamation. They remained s***es legally until the ratification of the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. They could have been freed at any time but were not. (Incidentally, four of those s***es were the property of the wife of Ulysses S Grant, who owned them, and then rather than freeing them, gave them to her father who lived nearby so she could continue to benefit from their labor without having the name of s***eholder.)

bahmer

maximus Loc: Chattanooga, Tennessee

Myself, I never heard of it til this week.
Since it's the official freeing of the last s***es in America, it's O.K. with me. African Americans deserve a holiday to celebrate it.

JimMe

maximus... Actually, it didn't free the S***es in Union States, and there were a few... It took the 13th Amendment being Ratified on December 6, 1865 to free all the S***es in the United States... But it's still an important date in Our History, and We can Celebrate its significance.

Mike Easterday

We have enough holidays . It's at a point people don't even realize it's what the day is for .

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

MMmmno!

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

I never heard of it either, it sounds like it was just made up.

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

More reasons not to.

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

I was happy enough with just the major holidays whose ass-backward idea was this?

Lt. Rob Polans ret.

Have a reason?

maximus Loc: Chattanooga, Tennessee

Add to that, the Emancipation Proclamation ONLY freed the s***es in states that refused to rejoin the Union. The states that rejoined voluntarily did not have to free their s***es, NOR did the Northern s***e owners.
I do know that Texas waited two years to finally free all the s***es in that state, so the EP was not a knockout blow.
Still, just in this week is the first I ever heard of it. I always though and was taught that way, that the EP ended s***ery right there and right then!

moldyoldy

Do you think those texans would willingly give up free labor. They kept it secret for as long as they could.

maximus Loc: Chattanooga, Tennessee

That's already happening. Thanks giving and Christmas reason's are all but forgotten.
The Thanksgiving Pilgrims had a feast and invited their Indian friends, ( friends at that time anyway), because they had shown them how to fertilize. Many had already died from the harsh conditions and disease. But they gave thanks to God for what they DID have, instead of lamenting what they had lost. They were humble and thankful.

Christmas is anything but a celebration of Christ's birthday, nor has it always been a celebration. In one of the early Puritan settlements, some young men were arrested for playing soccer on Christmas, ( not working), and their equipment confiscated. The elders were Protestant and did NOT observe Christmas because it was a Roman Catholic holiday.
But around the 1850's sales were so slow at Christmas that store owners looked for ways to increase sales. In t***h, there's nothing wrong with that. Christmas trees had also arrived, along with ornaments one could purchase to decorate the trees. Even the trees became a marketable item.
Christmas cards gave rise to the tradition of Christmas as WE know it. After the cards came the presents. The Northern states began to bleed over into the South, and I'm sure that the Southern s***e owning plantations spent lavishly for presents. Keep following the growth of the holiday and you end up with the Christmas we have today. We have Black Friday where people sometimes get k**led by shoppers trying to get that great deal.

For over a month people go to massive sales, they grab, they fight, they curse, and they sometimes k**l and then finally, on Dec. 25th, most will go to church on Sunday Morning before Christmas arrives. In all of this mess, one can hardly find Christ.
So I don't mind the African Americans having a holiday to celebrate freedom from s***ery. After all, their ancestors really DID earn that one. The meaning will be lost as the other holidays.