Justice Long Delayed

[David Lockmiller]

(06-18-2023 08:55 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  I suddenly woke up this morning before 5 AM and realized something important.

There is now a national holiday to honor the day two years after the Civil War that black slaves in Texas were informed that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The slaves of the South could have been informed of their freedom long before but Frederick Douglass refused a military commission as a Major to inform slaves in the South that they had been granted their freedom. Douglass was perfectly willing to let his own sons risk life and limb as members of the Massachusetts 54th (as I recall) but he was not willing to risk his own life to inform the slaves of the South of their freedom. Should not those black warriors who served and fought for the Union and the freedom of all slaves be especially honored today?

And, as for reparations, should not 90 percent come from the progeny of those who initially enslaved Africans for perpetuity and accepted in return financial rewards and "modern" military weapons in order to enslave even more African tribes for perpetuity?

"Frederick Douglass lamented that the words of the Proclamation 'touched neither justice nor mercy. Had there been one expression of sound moral feeling against Slavery, one word of regret and shame that this accursed system had remained so long the disgrace and scandal of the Republic, one word of satisfaction in the hope of burying slavery and the rebellion in one common grave, a thrill of joy would have run round the world.'" (Douglass's Monthly, January, 1863. (Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two, pp 410-411.)