[WSMDiscuss] {Ubuntu} Juneteenth rallies across the US demand racial justice (Rich McKay and Brad Brooks, Reuters) / Protesters topple Confederate statues during Juneteenth rallies (al-Jazeera)

[Jai Sen]

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Viruses in movement…, People in movement…, Freedoms in movement…, Justice in movement…, Herstory in movement…, The US in movement…

[Stepping back a bit, I think it’s important to realise and to recognise how marvellously appropriate it has been to contemporary history and movement in the US that there was already a ‘day’ in the life of the US such as Juneteenth, and that the anniversary happened to fall right now, just as the Floyd Rebellion is growing, and maturing; and therefore the ready-made reality that there was already a day to observe, and to celebrate, that is of so much symbolic importance to Blacks in the US.  What a gift !  Given this, and though I’ve already posted on what happened in the US on Juneteenth here is another, somewhat different take on what happened that day, this year…

[In this meanwhile, I’ve also learned a bit more about Juneteenth, from a brother in the US – that, for instance, it has traditionally been celebrated only in certain parts of the US (the South-east, and in Texas, and not throughout the US); and so in that sense, the fact of it’s now being celebrated by Blacks across the country marks another convergence of the great river that is growing across the country, and that can come to fertilise and nourish the entire country; and where this is of course of the greatest importance… 

[If there are people on this list who can open up this history, and who can comment on its strategic importance in the life of the movement that is now growing – both as ‘Movement’ and as the swell and surge that is taking place within US society as a whole, of all colours -, please do come in with your thoughts and/or citations :

Protesters topple Confederate statues during Juneteenth rallies

Demonstrations held across US against backdrop of protests fuelled by deaths of African Americans at hands of police

al-Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/protesters-topple-confederate-statues-juneteenth-rallies-200620062757937.html <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/protesters-topple-confederate-statues-juneteenth-rallies-200620062757937.html>


Protesters brought down Confederate statues as anti-racism rallies were held across the United States to mark the Juneteenth holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the country.

Demonstrations were held in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington on Friday against a backdrop of weeks of protests fuelled by the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police.

More:

Juneteenth: A call for progress and national recognition <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/juneteenth-call-progress-national-recognition-200619121513586.html%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links>
As racism protests roil US, Florida revisits dark past <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/200618190000869.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links>
US slavery: What is Juneteenth and how is it commemorated? <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/slavery-juneteenth-commemorated-200619100956739.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_page&utm_campaign=read_more_links>
In a stark illustration of the tensions roiling the nation, President Donald Trump issued a solemn White House statement commemorating Juneteenth, while also threatening protesters on Twitter ahead of his controversial rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday.    

Juneteenth marks the day - June 19, 1865 - when a Union general arrived in Galveston, Texas and informed slaves that they were free, two months after the Civil War had ended and two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The date is generally celebrated with prayer services and family gatherings, but comes this year amid national soul-searching over America's legacy of racial injustice.

 

SEE VIDEO AT LINK TO ARTICLE

 

US Juneteenth holiday: Celebrations amid anti-racism protests (01:56)

The US has been gripped by daily "Black Lives Matter" protests since the May 25 death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man killed by a white police officer in Minnesota.

Late on Friday, a statue of Confederate general Albert Pike was torn down by demonstrators in the capital and set on fire.

In North Carolina, demonstrators pulled down two statues of Confederate soldiers that were part of a larger obelisk near the state capitol in downtown Raleigh.

Earlier, several thousand demonstrators marched across New York's Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan, chanting the names of Black men and women killed by police in recent years.

"This year the entire country has had a reckoning," said protester Tabatha Bernard, 38, voicing support for growing calls for Juneteenth to be declared a national holiday.

"It's up to us to keep this going until we have change."

Protesters in Atlanta, where a police officer was charged with murder this week for shooting a Black man in the back, marched on the Georgia State Capitol.

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And protesters just toppled the Albert Pike statue in DC

 
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More gathered in Washington outside the Lincoln Memorial and near the White House, while thousands marched in Chicago and danced at festive rallies in South Los Angeles.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Juneteenth reminded Americans "that our country is capable of the worst violence and injustice but it also has an incredible capacity to be reborn anew".

In Tulsa, where Trump is set to hold his first campaign rally on Saturday since the coronavirus pandemic began, a Juneteenth celebration was attended by several thousand protesters.

"We've seen more unity and more blacks and whites together in the last three weeks than we've ever seen in a Trump rally," civil rights activist Al Sharpton told a press conference.

Trump had originally scheduled his Tulsa appearance for Juneteenth, but was forced to change it amid a public outcry over his provocative choice of date and location.

The city's Greenwood district was the site of one of the country's worst racist massacres, in 1921, when as many as 300 Black Americans were killed.

Trump issued a blunt warning to protesters headed to Tulsa.

"Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle or Minneapolis," he said. "It will be a much different scene!"

Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum declared a curfew in the city amid fears of violence but Trump later announced it had been lifted for "our many supporters" attending the rally.




> On Jun 20, 2020, at 11:11 AM, Jai Sen <jai.sen at cacim.net> wrote:
> 
> Saturday, June 20, 2020
> 
> Viruses in movement…, People in movement…, Freedoms in movement…, Justice in movement…, The US in movement…
> 
> [The US is aflame, its people are afire, and yesterday was a very special day… In celebration of such days ! :
> 
> Juneteenth rallies across the US demand racial justice
> 
> Rich McKay and Brad Brooks, Reuters
> 
> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-juneteenth-rallies-events-take-place-across-the-us-to-demand-racial/ <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-juneteenth-rallies-events-take-place-across-the-us-to-demand-racial/>
> 
> 
> People pray together during a Juneteenth event organized by the One Race Movement, at Centennial Olympic Park, in Atlanta, Ga., on June 19, 2020.  (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
> 
> 
> 
> Thousands marched in U.S. cities, major companies gave employees the day off and people in coronavirus lockdown held online forums on Friday as America marked Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of Black slavery that carries special resonance this year.
> 
> After a wave of recent protests and national soul-searching about the country’s legacy of racial injustice, marchers took to the streets from Atlanta to Oakland to mark the day and protest police brutality.
> 
> With many formal Juneteenth events cancelled owing to coronavirus concerns, activists instead organized street marches and “car caravans” to give people a way to show solidarity.
> 
> The annual Juneteenth celebration of the emancipation of slaves a century and a half ago comes this year on the heels of mass protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck for nearly nine minutes.
> 
> Four Democratic U.S. senators are to introduce a bill to declare Juneteenth a federal holiday.
> 
> “Juneteenth is the oldest celebration of the end of slavery in the US. And it should be recognized as a federal holiday,” Tina Smith, one of the senators, wrote on Twitter.
> 
> Weeks of mounting demands to end police brutality and racial injustice animated rallies expected in cities coast to coast, including Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.
> 
> In Atlanta, an important centre of the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, about 1,000 people gathered at Centennial Olympic Park downtown for a peaceful march on the state capitol building.
> 
> Emotions were running high in Atlanta after Rayshard Brooks, an African American man, was fatally shot in the back by a white policeman in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in the city. The policeman was terminated by the department and charged with murder.
> 
> Many Atlanta marchers carried signs proclaiming, “Black Lives Matter,” or “Get your knee off our necks,” and, “I can’t breathe,” referring to Mr. Floyd’s death.
> 
> Protests, police brutality and racism: A guide to the story so far, from George Floyd’s death to a global reckoning <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-antiracism-protests-george-floyd-minneapolis-explainer/>
> Marcher Antonio Jeremiah Parks, 27, of Atlanta said the civil-rights movement had not yet fulfilled its promises.
> “Civil rights isn’t over,” said Mr. Parks, who is Black and works at a homeless shelter. “We still feel the pain of slavery. It’s not healed, and won’t be until we’re treated the same.”
> 
> Leia Shanks, 34, who is white and works in retail, said:
> 
> “We’re here in solidarity,” she said. “We need to stand against racism and even though it’s 2020, what’s happening now isn’t right.”
> 
> Major U.S. companies have declared June 19 a paid holiday this year, some for the first time. Ride-hailing service Uber declared Friday a paid day off and several banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Capital One Financial Corp closed offices or branches early.
> 
> In New York, a few hundred protesters, mostly wearing masks owing to the coronavirus, gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum.
> 
> Maxwell Awosanya was handing out free snacks and water to the swelling crowd of protesters outside the museum.
> 
> “African-American history is American history. Black history is American history. We need to be heard, we need people to see us. … we need to be understood, we need to be seen as equal,” he said.
> 
> A diverse crowd, including parents with children in strollers and a large contingent of people on bicycles, marched in downtown Brooklyn, chanting, “No justice, no peace,” and, “Say his name, George Floyd.”
> 
> In Texas, where Juneteenth originated, Lucy Bremond oversees what is believed to be the oldest public celebration of the occasion each year in Houston’s Emancipation Park. This year a gathering that typically draws some 6,000 people to the park will be replaced with a virtual observance.
> 
> “There are a lot of people who did not even know Juneteenth existed until these past few weeks,” Ms. Bremond said.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ____________________________
> 
> Jai Sen
> 
> Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa
> 
> jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
> Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 
> 
> CURRENT / RECENT publications :
> 
> Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>, MOM1Flipkart <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>, and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
> Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
> 
> SUBSCRIBE TO World Social Movement Discuss, an open, unmoderated, and self-organising forum on social and political movement at any level (local, national, regional, and global).  To subscribe, simply send an empty email to wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net <mailto:wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net>
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____________________________

Jai Sen

Independent researcher, editor; Senior Fellow at the School of International Development and Globalisation Studies at the University of Ottawa

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded and unsurrendered Anishinaabe territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

CURRENT / RECENT publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2018a – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance. Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
Jai Sen, ed, 2018b – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (Indian edition). New Delhi : AuthorsUpfront, in collaboration with OpenWord and PM Press.  Hard copy available at MOM1AmazonIN <https://www.amazon.in/dp/9387280101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1522884070&sr=8-2&keywords=movements+of+movements+jai+sen>, MOM1Flipkart <https://www.flipkart.com/the-movements-of-movements/p/itmf3zg7h79ecpgj?pid=9789387280106&lid=LSTBOK9789387280106NBA1CH&marketplace=FLIPKART&srno=s_1_1&otracker=search&fm=SEARCH&iid=ff35b702-e6a8-4423-b014-16c84f6f0092.9789387280106.SEARCH&ppt=Search%20Page>, and MOM1AUpFront <http://www.authorsupfront.com/movements.htm>
Jai Sen, ed, 2017 – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press.  Ebook and hard copy available at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
SUBSCRIBE TO World Social Movement Discuss, an open, unmoderated, and self-organising forum on social and political movement at any level (local, national, regional, and global).  To subscribe, simply send an empty email to wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net <mailto:wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net>
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