President's Message
Rest and Work
Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States. On June 17, 2021, it officially became a federal holiday. Next Sunday, in 2022, our nation will celebrate the first official Juneteenth holiday. Short for “June Nineteenth,” this holiday marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to ensure that all enslaved people be freed. Notably, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, some two and a half years earlier, in the third year of the Civil War, declaring that “…all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free.” Why, despite a presidential proclamation, did slavery continue largely unabated?” Words matter. This was a political play to attract states to join the union and raise up a military force. As “…a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, [. . . ] Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, [. . . ] Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, [. . . ] are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.” The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery – it invited rebellion in confederate states.
The Emancipation Proclamation was expressly limited in that it applied only to those states that had seceded from the United States. Border states had not seceded, so slavery was still legal there. Certain parts of the Confederacy that had already fallen in the war were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation. Finally, slavery would only be abolished assuming the United States won the war because Lincoln pledged the support of his military forces to enforce this proclamation. To make sure he was perfectly understood, President Lincoln stated, “…I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.”
Hindsight is 20/20. We can plainly see the flaws, more than 150 years later, in even the most honest attempts to right a grievous societal wrong.
The Emancipation Proclamation may not have ended slavery with the stroke of a pen, but it did cause enduring change. This proclamation stirred American hearts and it turned the Civil War towards its conclusion. It ought to be remembered in the same breath that nearly 200,000 black Americans served in the United States military forces during the Civil War. Given the current fever pitch of political division, it seems apropos to note that it was Texas that became the first state to make Juneteenth an official holiday in 1979.
When we gather for the CUBFI annual golf tournament (Credit Unions Building Financial Independence) on June 21, we will pause to recognize those brave black Americans that worked to forge a more perfect union. But that moment will only provide a fleeting reprieve from drinking the heavy American water that they carried for us. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Let us take this moment to rest but affirm our resolve to dig in once again and set our shoulders to their labor. Juneteenth lets us remember, but it never stops calling us to work.
As always,
Bruce
