The hidden history of Juneteenth

One hundred fifty years ago today, the U.S. Army took possession of Galveston Island, a barrier island just off the Texas coast that guards the entrance to Galveston Bay, and began a late-arriving, long-lasting war against slavery in Texas. This little-known battle would endure for months after the end of what we normally think of as the Civil War. This struggle, pitting Texas freedpeople and loyalists and the U.S. Army against stubborn defenders of slavery, would become the basis for the increasingly popular celebrations of Juneteenth, a predominantly African-American holiday celebrating emancipation on or about June 19th every year.

The historical origins of Juneteenth are clear. On June 19, 1865, U.S. Major General Gordon Granger, newly arrived with 1,800 men in Texas, ordered that “all slaves are free” in Texas and that there would be an “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” The idea that any such proclamation would still need to be issued in June 1865 – two months after the surrender at Appomattox - forces us to rethink how and when slavery and the Civil War really ended. And in turn it helps us recognize Juneteenth as not just a bookend to the Civil War but as a celebration and commemoration of the epic struggles of emancipation and Reconstruction.

By June 19, 1865, it had been more than two years since President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, almost five months since Congress passed the 13th Amendment, and more than two months since General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate army at Appomattox Court House. So why did Granger need to act to end slavery?

To answer that question, we have to look back at slavery, the Civil War, and Texas’ peculiar place in both histories. During the Civil War, white planters forcibly moved tens of thousands of slaves to Texas, hoping to keep them in bondage and away from the U.S. Army. Even after Lee surrendered, Confederate Texans dreamed of sustaining the rebel cause there. Only on June 2, 1865, after the state’s rebel governor had already fled to Mexico, did Confederate Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith agree to surrender the state. For more than two weeks, chaos reigned as people looted the state treasury, and no one was certain who was in charge.

In that chaos, many African-Americans fled, some across the river in Mexico, a less-remembered pathway to freedom in the decades before the Civil War. Others launched strikes or refused to work. But in a state where whites outnumbered slaves more than two-to-one, planters and ranchers did everything in their power to sustain slavery wherever they could.

Granger’s arrival on June 19 marked the first effective intervention of the United States in Texas on the side of ending slavery. So when Granger issued his proclamation in Galveston, it was no abstract or symbolic statement against slavery and rebellion; he was striking a blow against slavery itself in the place where it remained most firmly entrenched in June 1865.

But what did Granger’s proclamation mean? One oft-told myth has it that Texans simply did not know that slavery had ended. What Granger brought, in this telling, was good news. But if we listen to the words of someone like Felix Haywood, a slave in Texas during the Civil War, we see that this was not so. “We knowed what was goin’ on in [the war] all the time,” Haywood later remembered. At emancipation, “We all felt like heroes and nobody had made us that way but ourselves.”

If Haywood and other enslaved people knew about the Emancipation Proclamation, what exactly did the events of June 19, 1865 mean? Here we face a key forgotten reality about the end of the Civil War and slavery that has been shrouded in the mythology of Appomattox. The internecine conflict and the institution of slavery could not and did not end neatly at Appomattox or on Galveston Island. Ending slavery was not simply a matter of issuing pronouncements. It was a matter of forcing rebels to obey the law. To a very real extent, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment amounted to promissory notes of freedom. The real on-the-ground work of ending slavery and defending the rudiments of liberty was done by the freedpeople in collaboration with and often backed by the force of the US Army.

Juneteenth celebration in Austin, Texas, on June 19, 1900

Granger’s proclamation may not have brought news of emancipation but it did carry this crucial promise of force. Within weeks, fifty thousand U.S. troops flooded into the state in a late-arriving occupation. These soldiers were needed because planters would not give up on slavery. In October 1865, months after the June orders, white Texans in some regions “still claim and control [slaves] as property, and in two or three instances recently bought and sold them,” according to one report. To sustain slavery, some planters systematically murdered rebellious African-Americans to try to frighten the rest into submission. A report by the Texas constitutional convention claimed that between 1865 and 1868, white Texans killed almost 400 black people; black Texans, the report claimed, killed 10 whites. Other planters hoped to hold onto slavery in one form or another until they could overturn the Emancipation Proclamation in court.

Against this resistance, the Army turned to force. In a largely forgotten or misunderstood occupation, the Army spread more than 40 outposts across Texas to teach rebels “the idea of law as an irresistible power to which all must bow.” Freedpeople, as Haywood’s quote reminds us, did not need the Army to teach them about freedom; they needed the Army to teach planters the futility of trying to sustain slavery.

Much more here.  And here's a list of Juneteenth celebrations and activities in the Houston and Galveston area.  Seems like a great day to burn a Confederate flag, doesn't it?

After Charleston

-- As Jon Stewart painfully pointed out: "We won't do jackshit."  He's correct.  For Obama's part, he seems to be tired of talking about the rampant and senseless mass shootings in this country, but he's not offering to actually do anything about it.  "Calling upon Congress to enact gun legislation" is limp and toothless.  His has been a bullied pulpit in more ways than the fourteen times he's had to speak about gun violence during his 6-and-one-half years in office.

-- Remember that time John Roberts said there was not enough racism in the South to need the Voting Rights Act any longer?  Yeah, tens of thousands of gun deaths every year across America and and one, sometimes two cases of voter fraud.  Which one do we need more laws to protect us from?  Particularly in the South, where the GOP is losing elections so badly.  Or maybe New Jersey.

-- The gun nuts are already after the 'gun-free' zones of South Carolina's churches.

The report that knocks down this asinine 'good guy with gun stops bad guy with gun' horseshit was recently in the news.

According to the study, gun owners committed 259 justifiable homicides compared to 8,342 criminal homicides in 2012, the most recent year data was available.

That means gun owners are 32 times more likely to kill someone without cause than to act in self-defense, the study reasoned.

“We hope legislators in every state will stop believing the self-defense myth and look at the facts,” says Julia Wyman, executive director of States United to Prevent Gun Violence. “Guns do not make our families or communities safer.”

-- The Confederate flag, which flies over the South Carolina capital of Columbia, will not be lowered to half-staff like the others flying there.  Because it can't be -- it's fixed to the top of the pole -- and because it takes a vote of the legislature to lower it.  So despite the murder of one of its members, that flag is flying higher over the statehouse than the US flag today.  And that really says everything you need to know about the South.

-- Republicans are either demagoguing the issue or avoiding it altogether.  It's not about race, it's not about guns, it's not about thugs or even domestic terrorists when they're white; it's about an attack on faith.  It was religious persecution that occurred inside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.  Stay classy, you God-fearing assholes.

-- While all that happened, the US House quickly and quietly passed the fast track trade authorization bill that was defeated just last week.  Last month the Senate did precisely the same thing.

Twenty-eight House Democrats pushed it over the finish line in a 218-208 vote.  Here are their names; they include Texans Rubén Hinojosa, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Henry Cuellar, and Beto O'Rourke.  Also DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Another 46 Democrats also voted to repeal a key portion of Obamacare yesterday.

Now do we understand why we can't have nice things in this wonderful country when so many of the alleged left party are actually right-wing?

Charleston

There just aren't appropriate words.

A white man opened fire during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in downtown Charleston, killing nine people, including the pastor, in an assault authorities described as a hate crime.

The suspect attended the meeting at the church Wednesday night and stayed for nearly an hour before the deadly gunfire erupted, Police Chief Greg Mullen said.

Among the dead are pastor and SC state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.  The gunman spared the life of one woman, saying 'tell everyone what happened here'.  Another little girl survived when her grandmother instructed her to 'play dead'.  Prior to the killings, the shooter allegedly said: "You rape our women and are taking over our country & you have to go."

The scene of the crime, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is the oldest black church in the South.  Dr. Martin Luther King spoke there; it has been at the epicenter of many of the civil rights issues of the times.

Police are releasing surveillance video photos of the assassin and his automobile.  But in contrast to Boston, where the city went on lockdown when the Tsarnaevs were on the loose, nothing like that has happened yet in Charleston.

And that's only the first difference in how the American criminal justice system operates differently for white and black people.  There will be plenty more differences, as we have already seen so many times recently.

Where's that post-racial America Republicans say we live in?  I mean, where is it outside their gated communities, their churches, their clubs.

Update: Dylann Roof, 21, has been captured.  No shots were fired by LEO or the suspect during his apprehension.  Roof's parents gave him a .45 pistol for his birthday two months ago, and he has a police record for drug use and a reputation of racist statements and actions.

Texas Monthly's Best and Worst state legislators for 2015

Best (those with which I heartily concur are in bold; links to selected mentions here and elsewhere):

Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-Killeen; also here)
Rep. César Blanco (D-El Paso)
Rep. Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton)
Sen. Kevin Eltife (R-Tyler)
Rep. Stephanie Klick (R-Fort Worth)
Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio)
Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio)
Rep. John Otto (R-Dayton)
Rep. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound)
Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston)

Worst:

Rep. Cecil Bell Jr. (R-Magnolia)
Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels)
Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston)
Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston)
Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound)
Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso)
Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler)
Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown)
Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford)
Rep. Molly White (R-Belton)

It's hard to pick a bone with any of these, but I thought Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana) should have made the 'Best' list just for his perservering against the likes of most of those on the Worst list.  And I thought Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) had a seriously bad session.  As previously posted, she blew up the craft brewers, dishonored Houston's music legacy, shot down "Mr. Tesla" and not only carried the anti-fracking ban bill but also convinced nearly all Houston Democrats in the Texas House to vote for it.

The feature also includes honorable and dishonorable mentions; Furniture; assessments of Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and House Speaker Joe Straus; and a look at Representative Charlie Geren, our biennial Bull of the Brazos.

The rest of these may get feted with Texas Monthly's write-ups linked in updates to this post, but are just as likely to get follow-up postings depending on how much they (RG Ratcliffe and Erika Greider at TM) and I have to say.

Keffer, Harless join Straus loyalists going out

The Speaker is going to have a difficult time getting re-elected, and if he does, then another dirty job maintaining discipline in the next legislative session (January 2017).

State Rep. Jim Keffer, an Eastland Republican who was one of the earliest supporters of House Speaker Joe Straus, has decided not to seek re-election next year...

First elected in 1996, Keffer is finishing his 10th term in the Texas House. He chairs the Natural Resources Committee and previously led the committees on Energy Resources, Ways and Means, Property Tax Relief and Economic Development.

His departure leaves only three members of the original Polo Road Gang — the 11 Republicans who met privately at state Rep. Byron Cook’s house on Polo Road in Austin before the 2009 legislative session to decide who they would unite behind in the race for speaker of the House. The 2008 elections left the House split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats, destabilizing then-Speaker Tom Craddick’s coalition and setting the stage for a change in leadership. The 11 Republicans chose Straus, picked up some other Republicans and a majority of Democrats, and elected him that January.

Now, only Straus, Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Cook remain in office.

Greg and Charles and also I have covered some of the bailouts already.  I never thought I would ever say that losing Patty Harless was big.  But it is.  (This is how far right we have moved in Texas over a short period of time.  And 2016 isn't going to slow it down very much.)

Harless said she has become frustrated with infighting among Republicans in the Legislature and hopes to stay involved in GOP politics and campaigns after her term ends at the end of 2016. "I'm just really disappointed in the way the Republicans act in the Texas House," she said. "People need to know that consensus and moderation and working across the aisle is not a bad thing.

"Some Republicans cater to the 4 or 5 percent who vote in the Republican primaries," she said. "That's not who we represent; we represent everybody in our districts."

Harless is one of House Speaker Joe Straus' stalwarts and serves on three powerful House committees: Calendars, State Affairs and Transportation. She said she thought about leaving after her fourth term: "I stayed last time for Straus. I'm leaving this time for me."

Pond scum about to float away aside, the House is going to harden a little, much like the Senate did this year.  That's a bad thing if you're not wealthy, not a white male who owns guns, and especially bad news if you're a woman who wants a choice about whether to give birth or not.   The tie that binds all of these disparate winners and losers here is voting.  Mad-dog Republicans do so and everybody else does not.  Not for lack of trying in some cases.  But far too many who could close the gap, or even the score a bit, simply cannot tear themselves away from 'Real Housewives'.

With Houston municipal elections coming up quickly, we'll see another record low before the high tide comes in 2016, when some of these Lege retirees get replaced.  And we can only hope their replacements aren't too kooky (an early bet I would not take).

Update (barely related): Harold Cook pre-writes the statements of legislators who will be receiving Texas Monthly's "Best" and "Worst" awards, due today.  A post on that announcement will follow here in short order.

Will Houston's mayoral race mimic San Antonio's?

In some ways I expect that it will.

Ivy Taylor, the socially conservative Democrat who received the backing of the Republicans in the runoff, nosed out Leticia Van de Putte, the more liberal of the two but still a pro-business centrist.  As noted last week, both black and white church-going types -- they call themselves Christians, as we know, though they rarely act like such in word and in deed -- decided to make the election about who hews closest to the bible.  Not much about potholes, or pensions, or budgets, or any of the myriad policy questions of the kind that Charles has frequently posed.  There's a country-club set of GOP in San Antonio (River Oaks-ish types here), and there's a far-flung suburban type who will only consider voting for Republicans.  Of the fourteen candidates in the race for Alamo City mayor, there were two Republicans of some prominence running (Tommy Adkisson and Gerald Ponce), neither of whom gained any traction in the general.  The two highest-profile Latino Dems, Van de Putte and her former colleague in the Texas Legislature, Mike Villarreal, split a majority (56.5%) of the turnout in the first round, with Taylor barely edging Villarreal to move into the runoff.  So while VdP led in the general election, and turnout for the runoff was higher (about 16% versus 12%) she was still narrowly defeated, by all indications by Republican and conservative voters.  The lack of an endorsement from the vanquished Villarreal -- his campaign treasurer did endorse Taylor -- could have played a part in VdP's loss.

This mirrors the result from the 2005 race, where Julian Castro lost to Phil Hardberger by precisely the same 51.5% margin that Taylor defeated Van de Putte.

Update:  Democrats were downbeat...

“At the end of the day, we needed 3,000 Democrats to get off their asses and go vote, and they didn’t," said Colin Strother, a Democratic consultant who had worked for the fourth-place finisher in the first round of the race, former Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson. "And that’s the story of our life in Texas politics, is that Democrats could elect anyone they wanted to any position — statewide, local, you name it — if they would get off the couch and go vote, and they don’t do it.”

... and Republicans were exultant.

"There's no doubt that Ivy has turned the era in San Antonio politics that we haven't seen in my lifetime," said Robert Stovall, chairman of the Bexar County Republican Party. "This is what Republicans are typically so happy to get, which is good leadership and good government. ..."

Weston Martinez, a conservative leader in San Antonio, said Taylor's win was "delivered by the social conservatives, evangelicals, Protestants and Catholics," groups encouraged to see she "doesn't leave her faith at the door when she goes into the mayor's office."

The Democrats voting in Houston -- white, black, brown -- might split over their respective ethnic coalition candidate (Chris Bell, Sylvester Turner, Adrian Garcia), sending one of those three (whomever is best at turning out his vote in November) into the final round.  That leaves Bill King and Stephen Costello, and to a lesser degree Ben Hall, to fight over whatever percentage of Republican/conservative votes there may be in the first round.

I don't see money being a factor in the Houston race, despite whatever spin gets generated from the reporting of campaign finance fundraising and spending.  The three conservatives can spend any amount they choose; the Democrats, particularly Garcia, will be limited mostly due to the size of their individual wallets.

I still rank Turner at the head of the current field of seven, but the Republican most likely to join him in the runoff at the time of this posting appears to be Bill King, by virtue of his appeal to the angry white conservative caucus.  In a runoff between Turner and King, Turner can prevail, no matter how bitter King tries to make things over bathrooms or street/flooding conditions or any other piss-value issue.  If two Democrats clear the bar and advance to the runoff, all bets are off.  As with San Antonio, one is going to have to run to the right to win, and I can't fathom which that might be.

The Pre-Bill Wrangle

Along the Texas coast, some Texas Progressive Alliance bloggers are scrambling for batteries, non-perishable food items, and full tanks of gasoline. But we still have time to bring you the best lefty blog posts from last week.

Off the Kuff tries to predict how county clerks and AG Ken Paxton will react to a SCOTUS ruling in favor of marriage equality.

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos -- and contributing to Daily Kos -- spanks the Texas Republican Party for its ideological decisions that rip off Texas taxpayers, robbing them of paid for services. Wake up voters. TX GOP: Spite Cheats Texas Taxpayers.

A few people predicted Leticia Van de Putte's close loss in the San Antonio mayor's race, and PDiddie at Brains and Eggs found them.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know a labor-bashing provision was in the Latino-bashing border security bill. 50 hours a week is the new norm.

Socratic Gadfly thinks we need to drop a bomb on our entire current health care system, going beyond "single payer" to a full-blown British-type National Health System.

Nonsequiteuse is frustrated by journalists who can't or won't shut down wingnuts when they go into the Gish Gallop.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson has good news regarding renewable energy: Georgetown will be powered 100 percent by renewable energy within the next few years.

Neil at All People Have Value took a picture of the mailbox he used to send a $50 donation to the Bernie Sanders campaign. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Texas Leftist wants you to know about the 150th Anniversary of Juneteenth, and where you can go across Texas to celebrate.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Scott Braddock looks back at how the Senate operated in a non-two-thirds-rule world.

Juanita Jean is keeping an eye on Tom DeLay as the SCOTUS same sex marriage ruling draws near.

Greg Wythe reviews the list of departing (or possibly departing) legislators so far.

Scott Metzger offers his thoughts on a recent kerfuffle between some high-end restaurants and the Silver Eagle beer distributor that has many Texas microbreweries caught in the middle.

Carmen Cruz and Annetta Ramsey argue that marriage equality matters to both gay and straight people.

BEYONDBones celebrates World Ocean Day while spreading the word about the problem of plastic pollution.

The Texas Election Law Blog critiques Rick Hasen's criticism of the Hillary Clinton campaign's push for voting rights reform.

Jay Crossley calls for an end to road-only bonds.

Jeb Bush's logo forgets important element

Seems to missing a little something, doesn't it?  Thanks for the fix to cartoonist Rob Tornoe of the Philly Inquirer.

Some presidential logos are timeless (and priceless).

Sunday Funnies

22 incredible facts about the life and career of Sir Christopher Lee

Trade vote goes down to the wire *updates*

The vote -- or series of votes -- is happening this morning -- or this afternoon, if the whip count is unfavorable to the president and the Republicans.

After a narrow and suspenseful 217-212 approval Thursday on a procedural vote, the House is scheduled today to have a series of debates and votes that could lead to passage of “fast track” trade promotion authority (TPA) for the still-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and future trade agreements.

A trade bill involving sub-Saharan Africa already easily passed on Thursday. Votes on two more bills today will lead up to the big vote on fast track, which essentially preapproves the TPP.

What's at stake:

The House on Friday will take up two critical bills already passed by the Senate. The first would offer so-called trade adjustment assistance — including job training, relocation allowances and assistance with health care costs — to workers who lose their jobs because of free trade deals. The second would grant this president and the next “trade promotion authority” — the power to negotiate international trade accords that could not be amended or filibustered by Congress.

Who's for it and who's agin' it:

Hours before one of the most consequential votes of President Barack Obama’s second term — whether to give him fast-track trade powers to clinch a sprawling Pacific Rim trade deal — Democrats and Republicans have no idea whether the votes are there to pass it.

What they do know is that pockets of opposition from every corner of the House of Representatives has thrown the package into serious jeopardy.

Everybody seems to be scrambling.

Because of possible Democratic defections, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the GOP whip team may have to approach some anti-TAA Republicans and ask them to vote in favor.

“I think Democrats are playing games with it right now. We’re in a situation where people are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) , a deputy whip, told The Hill. “Liberal, pro-trade union Democrats are breaking ranks and destroying a program that they fought to create because they’re so much against TPA [trade promotion authority].”

You will recall Democrats first defeated, and the next day approved, the threshold vote last month.

Obama's on the Hill right this minute, twisting arms or kissing ass, as the case may be.  I'm going to follow the Twitter feed and C-Span to watch what happens.  Updates here as they roll in.

Update (12:15 pm CST): Speaker Pelosi announced she would oppose TAA and TPA and all of the other trade bills up for a vote today.  The vote will happen shortly; her opposition may be the death knell for them.

Update (12:49 pm CST): There are 302 'nay' votes on TAA.  Democrats voting 'aye' total just 39. One hundred and fifty-six Republicans also voted no.  The initial trade legislation goes down in flames -- a loss for Obama, Boehner, Paul Ryan, and a slew of other free-traders.

Update (1:00 pm CST): The ceremonial TPA vote, occurring immediately after, only allows the previous measure to be reconsidered later and narrowly passes, 219-212.

I love the smell of oligarchy going down in flames in the afternoon. #StopTPP #StopFastTrack

— P.M. McKenzie (@pmmcken) June 12, 2015