Exactly. I'm not surprised at the reactions on this forum...entirely predictable. I personally think a holiday like this makes a lot more sense than one like Columbus Day.

Nothing bad with looking at the bad as well as the good. And there is also the great. The various Smithsonian museums are a great place to check the best of US history out. They rather recently opened up an African American history museum in DC. A People’s Journey, A Nation’s Story | National Museum of African American History and Culture

I disagree. I didn't learn about Rosa Parks because there was a unit on blacks in America and her name was pulled out of a hat, I learned about Rosa Parks because she had a significant role in American history. The same for Dr. MLK and other historical figures: I believe I learned about them due to their impact on American history, not because of their color.

Who knows if Dr. King would have been assassinated if he was not black. There were two Kennedy assassinations in the same timeframe even though they were not black.

It is true that many things in this country have occurred because someone was or was not black (or white or Asian or Irish or Canadian) and that is why choosing what history to teach should be color blind. Choose the events to teach regardless of color, don't look at color and then pick events to fill a quota.

Nicely said. I had an African American History Professor while at the U of Nevada, Reno who was one of my better history professors. A few of them threw in as much sex and violence as possible. He was not one of these. I had to drop English History because we had to do a speech on a topic and I doubted if I could do anything with the students attracted to that kind of course which highlighted the sex lives of the English royalty and the like.

None of my ancestors owned slaves. I've never owned a slave, in fact I've never met a slave, so I feel no guilt because slavery happened in this country. There is no one in this country that was alive during that time in history and there is no one alive now that was a slave. Slavery has been practiced by every country in the world and every race has been a source of slaves at one time or another. As was pointed out by another poster, slavery still happens in some countries.
My, a bunch of greats, grandfather on my mother's side of the family, got in trouble with the law in England. In the mid 1700's he was forcibly sent to America as an indentured servant, not much different than a slave. He was able to gain his freedom by fighting as a soldier in the Revolutionary War and served at Valley Forge. It was a pretty common practice by the owners of indentured servants to extend their servitude by claiming that their upkeep added their indebtedness with no end in sight in paying off the debt. I want my bunches of great grandfather to have his holiday for his forced labor.

MLK was a plagiarist and should have been dedoctored. If he was white he surely would have been.

"Boston University, where King received his Ph.D. in systematic theology, conducted an investigation that found he appropriated and plagiarized major portions of his doctoral thesis from various other authors who wrote about the topic."

From: Martin Luther King Jr. authorship issues - Wikipedia.

50 years on, what they won’t tell you about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr… Like How He Plagiarized the overly romanticized ‘I Have A Dream’ Speech - St. Lucia News From The Voice

and also...FBI tapes show Martin Luther King Jr had 40 affairs and 'laughed' as friend raped parishioner | Daily Mail Online

Whoa! Michael changed his name to Martin?

"In 1957, Martin Luther King officially revised his own birth certificate. It was a straightforward process: on July 23d of the same year someone simply crossed out the name Michael and replaced it with “Martin Luther, Jr.”

The new name was written in black ink next to the old one."

From: How MLK Changed His Name - US Birth Certificates

The Civil War was not started to end slavery. It was started because the southern states were the minority in the national government. The northern states outvoted them in nearly every issue. Not able to be fairly represented by the government, the southern states succeeded from the union and attempted to form a new country. Lincoln freed the slaves only when it was apparent the North was going to win the war.

Many if not all races have been taken (kidnapped) from their homes. You have to remember there was no machinery available to do the necessary work. In Roman times, Wars we're fought and the losers were taken as slaves, the pyramids in Egypt we're built by slaves, England not only enslaved blacks they enslaved Indians, ( both in USA and in India), Irish, and anyone who did not believe in Christianity. The Nazis stole Jews from their homes and gassed them, the Rusdians built a walk and locked up several Eastern European countries against their will, the list goes on and on! Every nationality has been subject to slavery, torment, and hatred.

Very true and well said. Better to have a freedom day to celebrate freedom for all instead of what we now have. Since my grandparents came here about 100 years ago what do I have to feel guilty about slavery in the US?

It seems more about celebrating the roots of many people here now rather than evils done in the past. They did have a great deal of diversity to deal with like not even being seen as a person but more like property back then. And even much later.

I think there were maybe three African Americans in my U of MN Law School Class of 1989. This was in a Class of just over 250.

I studied with one of them quite a bit for my First Semester finals. He turned out to be a false friend. So, I have had nothing to do with him since my 3rd year of law school.

I did have the luck to find a group of real friends while in law school.

Do you think Black Americans should feel any connection to July 4th? Was July 4th Independance Day for them? And yet about 1/4 of all humans in the US were Black on July 4th 1776. Should Black Americans object to the "pandering" of this country celebrating an event that only impacted the rights of white males who represented less than 1/2 the humans here?

July 4 was a statement of benefit for white males, but also the Declaration of Independance and later the Constitution gave a hint of a promise that someday perhaps basic human dignity and freedom might, just might, apply to all genders and all races. Everyone should be encouraged to read Fredrick Douglas's thoughts on July 4th, even if some of you think teaching about the Black view of history is pandering. I suppose Ann Frank's views of Nazis and Geromino's thoughts about the expansion of the US have no role in teaching history either.

The words "a more perfect Union" recognized we were not there yet. We still are not. But the recognition that Black Americans were not property but people came only with the defeat of the slavery supporting South and the freedom of slaves, as well as changes to our Constitution.

Juneteenth celebrates that the promise to Black people in this nation was finally fulfilled, at least in part. No other race or nationality was declared not human, subhuman, property here.

And the idea that this country can express some joy that we all got something right, that the people and the government helped out an oppressed minority because it was the right thing to do even if it caused some pain and societal disruption... that is a very important thing to celebrate, to acknowledge, and hopefully to emulated for those groups which today are not equal citizens because of ignorant hatred or political expediency

:BigApplause:

Eliminate all Public Sector Holidays.

Yes but we're talking about what happened, and is happening, here in THIS country. Juneteenth is an American holiday, because of an event that happened in Texas, USA, on June 19th.

There is also slavery here in the USA by the way, presently. But most of the buyers prefer young white girls.

I'd be fine with getting rid of Christmas as a Federal holiday. Why are we pandering to one group? Why don't we have Eid as a Federal holiday? Why not Yom Kippur? Why not Beltane? Every religion has its "big deal Holy days" but only Christians get an automatic paid day off or bonus pay for working it, and don't have to use up personal time for the privilege.

Jews, Muslims, and atheists also get Christmas off.

I worked most Christmas Holidays. Our factories were open 365 days/year. Christmas usually meant that we performed maintenance functions or worked on capital upgrades.

When I worked as a patent attorney at Eastman Kodak, the Jewish attorneys in our department were given some of the Jewish holidays off as paid holidays in addition to Christmas so they ended up with more holidays than the rest of us. Don't have a clue to how it was handled throughout the rest of the company. The same practice went on elsewhere I worked as well.

This thread seems like it might be a good place to make a suggestion to my fellow TOTVers. Here goes:

I have only recently taken up listening to podcasts. (I can get a lot of stuff done around the house and yard with my AirPods and my podcast app.)

My favorite podcast is Freakonimics: The Hidden Side of Everything. The topics discussed are varied and almost always interesting to me.

Ironically, the one that popped up this morning while I was doing lots of laundry was an interview with Arthur Brooks, an economist, who for 10 years ran one of the most influential, conservative think tanks in the world.

Even though this podcast is a couple of years old, it still widely applies to what is happening to us, the American people — and why — and what we need to try to do about it. He addresses this big divide in a calm, realistic, thought-provoking manner. He gives stats on how a lot of people truly feel about the way we are.

He delves a little bit into brain science — which is what I have long thought has to be the root-cause of the way we are acting.

The title of the podcast is “How Can We Break Our Addiction to Contempt?” If you search Freakonomics podcasts, you will find it. It is Episode 478 from October 13, 2021.

If only a few of you look for this podcast and listen to it and maybe even pass it along to someone else, it will have been worth taking the time to write this post. There is something in it for allllllll of us to think about and maybe actually act upon.

The podcast takes 46:39 to listen to……not only could it give you something to consider that could be important in your own life’s relationships but important to our country, too.

I hope some of you will give this podcast a listen. I bet you could find a few things to agree with or think further about…….or, at least, you could get some boring housework done while you listen.

Optimistic Boomer

Not much
 

About as much as kwanzai

You're missing the point. Each religion has its own Holy day, where they need to take a day off from work. Jewish bank employees don't get a day off on Yom Kippur if that day falls on a Wednesday. They have to request it in advance, and use up a personal day - something Christian bankers don't have to do, if they want Christmas off. They get it off, with pay. A free Holy day for them, while everyone else has to "pay" for theirs by using up a personal day, or vacation pay. Or in some cases, they have to take a day off without getting paid at all. While Christians get the day off with pay, because it is customarily a paid holiday on a federal level.

No podcasts for me, I need to see the people who are speaking, or have closed captions. My brain isn't good at listening to voices when my eyes can't see their faces. I'm the same way on the phone; I can't stand talking on it for more than a few minutes at a time.

Nonsense...

Somebody completely missed the point...

No one ever suggested "let's not talk about that"...

Very true, we should be talking about all of our history not just one group.

The Irish Slaves have entered the chat...

I wouldn't mind a day... Maybe Passover... But let the Italians cater it...

Sebastian Maniscalco says it best...

https://youtu.be/5KQgRn4j-DE

I wish we could get rid of Thanksgiving and Easter and every other friggin holiday and birthday that falls in between the two. That way my wife wouldn’t insist on being up north so she could see the kids and we could spent the entire time between November 1st until the end of April at our Villages home. And while I’m hoping and wishing, taxes shouldn’t need to be filed until July 15th. How good would that be : )

This is total BS based on what I have experienced. The Jews with whom I worked were given paid religious holidays in addition to our normal holidays.

We don’t agree on something, so I’m a bigot
 

Hey Stu that’s the new game that the left plays.

Means nothing really to anybody just that in Texas when 2000 slaves were freed. Just a day in our colorful American history. Somebody thought what great idea to celebrate and make a paid day off for federal workers.

An important date in history
 

It’s important to commemorate the day that African Americans were declared free from being enslaved. I don’t celebrate it personally but I will share this: My sister is in a nursing home, and I have gotten to know one of its employees well because he facilitates FaceTime calls for me with my sis, using his own phone. He’s an African American, and for the past two years, I have sent him an email with “Happy Juneteenth!” He responds with so much appreciation that I acknowledged it. And that makes my day.

Funny that no one has mentioned the American Indian. Talk about being treated badly. This was their land first.

Wow! That was beautifully said! I couldn't agree more!
 

:mademyday:

Should being the operative word.

All it means is “NO MAiL”,

It means nothing. Another made up holiday to keep us distracted and clueless.

The commonly accepted number is more like 250,000. (but hey, what's two orders of magnitude when you have a point to make)

It means that Africa is still the largest slave country in the World. Slave trading started there and is still going on today

If you are African American it is a meaningful day. Not all Federal holidays are meaningful to all of Americans.