🚨🚨 DO NOT MISS IT: Today at 12:30pm ET I'll be hosting a Juneteenth discussion featuring Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, and BET co-founder Bob Johnson. (I'll be talking to a black billionaire about reparations ... seriously.) Register here.
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🎙 "[T]here shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the Territories of the United States now existing, or which may at any time hereafter be formed or acquired by the United States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes where of the party shall have been duly convicted." - See who said it and why it matters at the bottom. (It may surprise you.)
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Quote: "[T]here shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the Territories of the United States now existing, or which may at any time hereafter be formed or acquired by the United States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes where of the party shall have been duly convicted."
Why it matters: On June 19, 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in all current and future U.S. territories (though not in the states). However, this is not why black Americans celebrate the Juneteenth holiday.
- Juneteenth is celebrated in honor of June 19, 1865, when a military order informed thousands of still-held slaves in Texas they had been freed.
- The day was three years after the congressional order, close to three years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and months after Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered, effectively ending the Civil War.