Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this Sunday, we commemorate the 157th Juneteenth, a portmanteau of June and the nineteenth, which celebrates the liberation of the last remaining enslaved Black Americans at the end of the Civil War. This is our newest Federal holiday, which we will observe on Monday, but African-American communities have celebrated Juneteenth as Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day, or Black Independence Day as far back as 1886 in Texas. On this date in 1865, U.S. Army Major General Gordon Granger arrived at a Confederate outpost in Galveston, TX, where he delivered the news of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to 250,000 still- enslaved Texans. Many United States Colored Troops--USCT--who fought for freedom and to preserve the Union, accompanied Granger. Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which granted Black Americans their freedom, 2 years earlier. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to U.S. Army Lt. General Ulysses Grant 2 months earlier at Appomattox. In my home State of Maryland, abolitionists Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman paved the way for future civil rights activists by risking their lives to help bring enslaved people to freedom. Their work has had a profound impact on our community and on Maryland's rich cultural history. African-American history is American history. We all must learn the lessons of Juneteenth and understand how our lives have been changed because of it.…”