Meditation Moment: ~ Wednesday, June 19, 2024: What IS Juneteenth?

Meditation Moment for June 19, 2024 ~ Juneteenth

Today, the reason for our newest Federal Holiday is still unknown in many white communities of this country (or worse: ignored, discouraged, or  disparaged). Federal employees have the day off as do many state employees where it has been adopted.* So what exactly does it mean or commemorate? Let me answer first with this:

   Imagine that you have been in prison for your entire life. You were born there. Many of your family have died there. You MUST do what your Jailer tells you to do inside or outside from dawn to dark of night, in all kinds of weather amid threats, serious physical  punishment, or a violent death, if you fail even for a moment. Your parents, your children, your spouse ~ if you have any ~ are sent to other prisons and you will likely never see them again. You are fed, some more meagerly than others, and you have housing, of a sort ~ cold, hot, damp, with rats and mice and other critters and insects living with you crawling through your food and all over your body for the few hours you are in that space. So if you are 90 or 50 or 30 or 15 years old you have been conditioned to be a prisoner. 

   Then one day, say you’re imprisoned in Texas on June 19, 1865, this General Gordon Granger arrives to tell you and all the imprisoned like yourself, that your release from prison was ordered by President Lincoln more than TWO YEARS ago but you are only hearing about it today. What is your first reaction? And what comes later as you realize it took 2 Years for you to be released? And then what becomes of you and your descendants who were and are hated and maligned and murdered because those who imprisoned you, and were then forced to release you, poisoned the small minds of others who didn’t look like you.

Lord God of us ALL, You created us in the many colors and shades of our ancestors from the palest pale to the darkest dark and all the hues in between, and gave us the free range of the various parts of Your planet to develop our languages, spiritualities, and cultures that bring great and beautiful diversities to the whole Earth. Give us the courage and strength to walk together with You as our Guide, with Christ our Teacher, and with the Holy Spirit as our Grace-Filled Energy to love one another ~ and ourselves ~ as You who Mothers and Fathers all, loves and blesses each and every Human of all shapes, sizes, temperaments, language, culture, and color. Amen.

Click here for more history of Juneteenth:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

*States that have adopted Juneteenth as a State holiday:  

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/09/more-than-half-of-states-now-recognize-juneteenth-as-an-official-holiday/

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