Good Monday morning. It’s going to be a quick one today, since technically I’m off for the federal holiday of Juneteenth – sometimes referred to as America’s Second Independence Day – which is being officially recognized as such for the third year now.
You’ve probably heard about the history of this holiday by now (there have been umpteen news reports on the topic that I’ve heard in just the last few days alone). If you’re living under a rock or perhaps willfully not paying attention to the news – maybe taking a little mental health break, which I totally understand and support – here’s a brief overview:
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as the U.S. headed into the third year of the Civil War. It declared “that all persons held as slaves” in the confederate states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
As an aside, while this was a pretty damn important milestone, the Emancipation Proclamation was by no means perfect. It did not end all slavery, contrary to what some might think.
First of all, its implementation was conditional on the Union winning the war. It also did not apply to any states OTHER than those that had seceded from the Union – in other words, not in the border states or those that had been captured during the fighting by the North.
It did, however, fundamentally change the nature of the conflict, confirming that the war was, at its heart, about freedom for an entire race of people, not merely a fight to preserve the unity of the (at that moment) divided United States. It also set a course for what the post-war era would look like, assuming the Union was indeed victorious.
Unfortunately, but not surprising, not everyone was so keen to see the Emancipation Proclamation succeed. Slaveholders in Texas who knew about the document, decided to keep the news to themselves, effectively extending slavery.
As a result, slaves in Galveston – the western-most area of the Union – weren’t told about their emancipation until June 19, 1865 – technically two-and-a-half years AFTER they were freed. Some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, bearing the news that about 250,000 enslaved black people in the state were free by executive decree.
The first Juneteenth celebration was held in Galveston a year later.
Though Juneteenth is considered the longest-running holiday in Black communities, its observance has expanded considerably since President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law in 2021.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey first introduced the Juneteenth bill in 2020 after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. It didn’t pass that year, thanks to objections raised by conservative Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, but was reintroduced the following year and passed.
The 2021 vote in the Senate was unanimous, while the House passed it, 415-14, with all the “no” votes cast by Republicans (not all of whom were from the South, FWIW).
Celebration of Juneteenth traditionally includes picnics and cookouts and gathering with family and friends. It can also be a day of service or simply a day of rest and remembrance.
If you’re planning to do something outdoors, you might play it safe and bring a raincoat/umbrella because there’s a slight chance of a shower. Otherwise, skies will be partly cloudy and temperatures will be in the low 80s. (I know I said this post was going to be quick, and yet here we are and you’ve already had to scroll down quite a ways. False advertising. Sorry).
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden called for new taxes on the wealthy and corporations and warned Republicans would roll back policies he argued had saved the US economy, setting out core themes as he kicked off his reelection campaign at a Philadelphia rally.
Conservatives slammed Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, for his introduction of Biden at an event in Philadelphia to address the federal government’s response in rebuilding a collapsed portion of the Interstate-95 highway.
After inching forward earlier this year at such a slow pace that it worried Democrats, Biden is kicking his reelection bid into a higher gear. He’s hosting a series of fundraisers, rolling out new staff members and announcing key endorsements.
As Biden ramps up his re-election campaign, his team is focused not on the various investigations into former President Donald Trump but rather on spotlighting the ways, however mundane, his administration can assist Americans in their daily lives.
Biden said Saturday that the U.S. does not support a fast-tracked process for Ukraine to join NATO at the conclusion of the war.
Biden will highlight climate commitments made by his administration and announce new federal funding for climate resilience projects as part of a three-day trip to the Bay Area in Northern California that begins today, according to a White House official.
Biden is expected to announce a pledge of more than $600 million for climate adaptation projects as part of his “Investing in America” agenda. The announcement will occur at the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Interpretive Center and Preserve in Palo Alto.
GOP 2024 candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will also be campaigning in Northern California today.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had “candid” talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, the two countries said, as both looked to project a positive but cautious tone about a visit meant to bring some semblance of normalcy back to a strained relationship.
Senate Democrats are gearing up for a spending fight with House Republicans as negotiators in the upper chamber prepare to mark up government funding bills in the days ahead.
Former national security adviser John Bolton said former Trump appeared to have a “pattern” of wanting to collect materials “of interest to him,” including classified documents, and knocked the former president’s behavior as “very disturbing.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Attorney General Bill Barr both compared Trump to a child as he continues his 2024 bid for the White House.
The former Trump allies hurled insults at him, calling him names like “loser” and “consummate narcissist” over his indictment on charges he put the nation at risk by taking and sharing sensitive government documents after leaving the White House.
Barr, who served as attorney general under Trump, excoriated his former boss for “reckless conduct” that led to his indictment on charges of mishandling classified documents, saying that the case was “entirely of his own making.”
The legal theory by which he gets to take battle plans and sensitive national security information, as his personal papers, is absurd,” Barr said of Trump.
A proposal that would extend subsidized health care coverage in New York to people regardless of their immigration status has drawn skepticism from Gov. Kathy Hochul over its cost. Advocates are mounting an effort to get her to reconsider.
New York Republicans in the US House of Representatives are asking Hochul to veto a bill providing federal health care benefits for illegal immigrants after the state Senate approved the measure.
The state Department of Labor is investigating child labor violations at New York businesses as part of an initiative to protect working minors in the state, according to Hochul’s office.
A measure that would allow New York state to move forward with a renewal of the Seneca Nation’s gaming compact will not go forward in the state Assembly next week, Speaker Carl Heastie announced late Friday afternoon.
Lawmakers did not take up proposed laws before session ended to change how the state taxes adult-use and medicinal cannabis. Advocates say they’re disappointed about lacking conversation to make the permit process to enter the industry more transparent.
Easy access to the state Capitol during session has been scaled back since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting the public’s ability to watch the proceedings in person and have a chance to buttonhole a lawmaker on policy under consideration.
Hochul said Friday she wants the state to have regulatory authority over boats that operate in caves and similar waterways following a fatal tour boat accident in an underground water tunnel off the Erie Canal.
State Parks regulates commercial vessels but, Hochul’s office said, does not have the authority to oversee boats in non-navigable waters, such as in caves on private property.
Hochul announced on Friday that the state will have its Free Fishing Weekend on June 24 and 25.
Micron Technology, the leading memory chipmaker, issued a warning on Friday regarding a more significant impact on its revenue due to a Chinese ban on the sale of its chips to crucial domestic industries.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams appeared with outgoing NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell on Thursday for the first time since news of her resignation broke, and shared a public hug.
At a Juneteenth celebration at Gracie Mansion, the mayor compared the commissioner to his own sister, who helped raise him, and whom he described as selfless and composed in the face of adversity.
The next N.Y.P.D. commissioner will have to contend with the mayor, a wary police force eager for clear leadership and a city worried about both crime and the use of force.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin may be the second most powerful person in New York City government. But her views, leadership style and ethics have raised questions.
Adams suspended a decades-old rule Friday that requires low-income New Yorkers to stay in homeless shelters for at least 90 days before they can apply for rental vouchers — a move that appears likely to trigger his first veto standoff with the City Council.
Now, the nixing of the requirement means the city can free up space in its overrun homeless shelter system to help deal with the influx of asylum seekers who are still flooding in.
NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico, more than a half century after taking a bullet to the face in a Brooklyn drug raid gone bad, wants prosecutors to take a fresh look at the shooting.
All 51 New York City Council seats are up for a vote in this year’s primary and general elections — and while most will prove cakewalks for the incumbents involved, some are shaping up to be competitive.
Three moderate Democrats are running to replace Kristin Richardson Jordan, one of the city’s most left-leaning politicians, who is not seeking re-election.
Tension between the city and its surrounding areas over issues like crime, immigration and congestion pricing has grown since the pandemic.
NYRA: Should the construction of a new Belmont Park require the Belmont Stakes to be run at a different venue, the NYRA will aim to hold the event at historic Saratoga Race Course.
The City of Troy has begun replacing lead water lines after accounting for the status of more than 30 percent of the service lines in the city, Mayor Patrick Madden’s administration recently announced.
The president of the state troopers union said the bail granted to the driver of the car carrying a passenger who wounded a trooper on I-88 on Friday is far too low.
Pope Francis prayed with a crowd of thousands in St. Peter’s Square yesterday, two days after he was discharged from a Rome hospital, giving thanks for the “closeness” he had felt during his hospitalization for abdominal surgery.
Carol Higgins Clark, who as a young woman retyped manuscripts by her mother, the famed mystery writer Mary Higgins Clark, before going on to become a best-selling suspense novelist herself, died on Monday in Los Angeles. She was 66.
Music producer Quincy Jones was hospitalized over the weekend after a bad reaction to something he ate. The 90-year-old Jones was cleared by doctors after he went from his Los Angeles home to an emergency room on Saturday, his representative told TMZ.
