Important day, important to realize, recognize our country’s history, and take steps to heal.

This day to acknowledge a formal end to slavery of African American people in these united states. A day first recognized in Texas, then spread through the South, then the whole country.

Important words remembered, spoken, to continue the healing process, one hundred forty years since slavery ended,

Other forms of control and suppression now to the fore, more progress, and healing needed in these United States, to fulfill the words, make the words reach the lives, make lives better…

From the Emancipation Proclamation…

“…That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and navalauthority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom,” and then…

“I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against authority and government of the United States,

and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion,

do … order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion, against the United States, the following, towit:…”

Lincoln then listed the ten states still in rebellion, excluding parts of states under Union control, and continued:

“I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free. …

[S]uch persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States. … And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

A beginning, a start, so long ago to now, still a ways to go, through bias and bigotry and American Caste, and systemic racism, still on the journey, the healing journey.