Happy Juneteenth

June 19, 2007 was special for African Americans. In addition to celebrating 142 official years of freedom from slavery, for the first time, an African American, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, has a legitimate chance to be elected president of the United States. Slavery officially ended in the Confederacy in January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Union soldiers however waited until June 19, 1865 after the War ended to notify slaves in Galveston, Texas that they were free.

So in Texas and throughout the U.S., June 19 became the day that former slaves began celebrating Juneteenth Day. Recently - in the 1960s, June 19 re-emerged as the date African Americans and others celebrate it nationally and internationally. Many Americans both black and white may wonder why African Americans would not just celebrate July 4 as they're Independence Day. If one takes a moment to consider, the answer is quite simple.

White America officially declared its independence from England on July 4, 1776. Slaves and freed blacks fought alongside whites (as blacks have done in every American conflict since America originated) to win the Colonist's freedom from England, but the slaves remained slaves.

Juneteenth isn't just a holiday to be celebrated by descendants of former slaves to have a good time. It's also a day used to teach and remind African-American children what their forebears endured and overcame.

It must also be noted that Obama isn't the first African American to have a reasonable (in the sense that he could win his party's nomination) shot at the White House.
The first was Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, four-star Army General and a member of the Republican Party.

Powell was the preferred Republican candidate in 1996 and would have opposed former president Bill Clinton in his run for a second term, but he rejected the nomination on advice from his wife, Alma, who felt he would have been an assassin's target.
Prior to Powell, there were two other African-American candidates who announced their plans to seek the presidency.
In 1983, and again in 1987, Jesse Jackson entered the Democratic Primary races.

In the '83 Primaries he received 3.5 million votes and in '87 he received 6.5 million votes.

Though Jackson himself and many other African Americans considered him a serious candidate, most Americans (all colors) thought his candidacy was a symbolic one.
Before Jackson's 1983 run for president, an African-American woman, U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm, D-NY, declared herself a candidate in 1972. Her candidacy was also viewed as symbolic by a majority of Americans.

If the slaves freed in 1865 were alive today, who knows how long the celebration would last. Perhaps we'll have an idea in November 2008.

Happy Juneteenth Day!

Nelson Graves writes a weekly column for The News Virginian. He is Western Virginia director of the Virginia Minority Supplier Development Council. E-mail him at .