Ritchie Torres: “I thank Congresswoman Jackson Lee for her leadership. In order to understand where we stand in the present, we have to…”

“I thank Congresswoman Jackson Lee for her leadership. In order to understand where we stand in the present, we have to understand where we have been and how we came to arrive at a society as racially divided and as unequal as our own. For me, it is a scandal that most Americans have never heard of Juneteenth and most Americans have never heard of the Tulsa race massacre because these events are rarely, if ever, taught in public education. Juneteenth is not only not taught in our public schools, but there is not even a national holiday celebrating an event that has profound meaning to Black Americans, to all Americans. So I want to commend the gentlewoman's leadership in advancing a bill that would establish Juneteenth as a national holiday. Frederick Douglass famously posed the question: What to a slave is July Fourth? Juneteenth is to Black America what July Fourth has exclusively been to White America: Independence Day. Juneteenth refers to the moment when slaves in Texas came to discover their legal freedom under the Emancipation Proclamation. Out of that discovery came a 156-year tradition of Juneteenth celebration. It refers to the moment when Major General Gordon Granger led a Union Army to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation 2\1/2\ years after its issuance.…”