Happy Juneteenth!

I am a native Texan. Texas is great! Texas is horrible! I can make both of those arguments, but one thing that really surprises me about Texas is that it was the first state in the USA to celebrate Juneteenth, which became a federal holiday in 2021. In 1979, Albert Ely Edwards, then 42, was a member of the Texas House of Representatives and authored and sponsored House Bill 2016, making June 19 a state-paid holiday in Texas. It passed in 1980.

Who Was Al Edwards?

Born in Houston, Albert Edwards came from a very large family. His father, Reverend E.L. Edwards, who served at Community Baptist Church in Acres Homes, and is mother, Josephine Radford Edwards, had 16 kids. Al was number six. Ebony detailed his life, which ended in 2020 at the age of 83, very well. He was very close with Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who called him "a trailblazer" shortly after his death.

Edwards went to Wheatley High School and then to Texas Southern University, graduating in 1966. His obituary points to his being married three times and having six children. He was ordained as a minister in 1990. Edwards was a man with a strong passion that drove him to do great things.

What Is Juneteenth?

June 19, 1865 is the day that people in Galveston, Texas learned that slavery ended two and a half years earlier, when President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Our Constitution was amended in late 1865 with the 13th Amendment being ratified after it was passed by Congress in January 1865.

Juneteenth commemorates emancipation. We celebrate this freedom, but we also recognize the ongoing fight for equality.

My Wishes

I grew up not caring about Juneteenth, but I was rather ignorant and not encouraged at all by my family or friends to care about it. The whole George Floyd tragedy from 2020 certainly opened my eyes, and I have learned a lot recently. I discussed a nearby spot that I visited on Easter that is a historical site of Houston's first sit-in from 1960, where students from TSU led a demonstration against segregation. I also wrote about a book, Our Portion of Hell, a little over a year ago that explained how sharecroppers were persecuted in Tennessee for wanting to register to vote in the 1960s. I was disgusted that I never learned about the Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma when I was in school. Sadly, this tragic race massacre from the 1920s is not widely taught at all.

I wish that we could all get on the same page. Yes, it is sad that we had slavery, but it is even sadder how long it has taken to get fully past it. All of us should appreciate what slavery did to our society, and we should all work on getting past racism that persists to this day.