Fiscal Note
No fiscal impact.
Title
SUBSTITUTE: Recognizing and commemorating June 19, 2023, as Juneteenth in Madison, Wisconsin
Body
WHEREAS, June 19, 2023, marks the 158th commemoration of Juneteenth; and,
WHEREAS, June 19th or Juneteenth, is Freedom Day; and,
WHEREAS, this day that not only celebrates freedom but honors and punctuates the quest for the civil liberty of freedom; and,
WHEREAS, Juneteenth, at its genesis, symbolically commemorates the end of slavery in America, and the beginning of the road to freedom for Black people, which is foundational to freedom for all; and,
WHEREAS, a contradiction existed between the American ideals of liberty and equality; and,
WHEREAS, in 1865, after the Civil War, the institution of slavery remained in effect with many citizens choosing to ignore the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order for freedom and justice, signed into law nearly two and a half years prior to June 19, 1865; and,
WHEREAS, the plantation owners, business owners who owned enslaved people forced by birth and/or captivity as unpaid labors and involuntary servants in involuntary slavery from birth to death for generations, worked to further suppress the Proclamation; and,
WHEREAS, on June 19, 1865, under the direction of the United States Government, led by General Gordon Granger, the United by States Colored Troops (numbers 29 and 31), and a cavalry of 1,800 plus troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, the last city in the United States to receive formal news; and,
WHEREAS, the troops, who were charged with enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, advised the community as a whole that all are free and that they had been freed by the Proclamation two and a half years prior; that (under the ratification of the 13th Amendment) slavery and involuntary servitude was unconstitutional and was banned in all US territories; and,
WHEREAS, Juneteenth observations and celebrations started in Texas in 1865; and,
WHEREAS, Juneteenth becam...
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