Too many Americans think Juneteenth is a holiday for Black people, but it's about our nation's promise and future.
Legend says when Jim Tomlinson learned of Gen. Gordon Granger ’s proclamation ending slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, he ordered enslaved men to carry him on a stretcher to an old live oak on his Brazos River plantation, where he addressed the four dozen Blacks he forced to work the fields. “Today, you are as free as me,” my great-great grandfather allegedly said. “You are welcome to stay and work for pay.
My grandfather was proud of that legacy and thought I should be, too. What I didn’t know at the time was that my grandfather and his father had joined the Ku Klux Klan and that lynch mobs organized on our plantation before riding out to commit atrocities. Many Texans and Southerners base their identity on ancestors like mine but edit out the inconvenient and unsavory truths.
Republican Party Of Texas Ku Klux Klan Freedman's Bureau Southern Deep South U.S. Army Juneteenth Americans Jim Tomlinson Gordon Granger Blacks Robert Edward Lee Tomlinson Texans Chris Tomlinson Southerners United States Texas Union Brazos River Confederate Dallas Battle Of Yellow Bayou Houstonchronicle.Com/Tomlinsonnewsletter Tomlinson's Take Constitution
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