They just passed legislation making June 19th “Juneteenth Day” a national holiday. It is said to be the day that slaves in Texas were notified they were free. They were the last to be notified. Why they didn’t select the Day of the Emancipation Proclamation, the day the South surrendered and slaves fell under the jurisdiction of Washington and were covered by the Emancipation Proclamation, or the date of the ratifying of the Thirteenth Amendment is beyond me, but they are free to choose any date they want. What doesn’t make sense is that they want to close the loophole in the 13th Amendment that allows involuntary forced labor for convicted felons. They say that it caused generations of families to be touched by incarceration and poverty. They say Blacks in the South were jailed for frivolous reasons to use them for slave labor and Black felons were given dirty work while White felons got easier work. If that is true, then they have no one to blame but themselves because the Democratic party controlled the South after the federal troops were withdrawn and it would have been the police they elected who would have arrested the Blacks and controlled the assigning of labor in the prisons. It was the KKK and the Democratic Party that sought to intimidate Blacks and prevent them from voting in the South after Blacks received the right to vote and keep them isolated by requiring segregated drinking fountains, restrooms, and eating facilities.