Perspective | African American holidays, like Aug. 1, deserve national attention

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Perspective: African American holidays, like Aug. 1, deserve national attention

For two decades between the late 1830s and the Civil War, Aug. 1 — the commemoration of the moment in 1834 when 800,000 enslaved Africans laboring in British colonies earned their liberty — was the most important date on the African American calendar.In the United States, where the end of slavery still seemed a forlorn hope, many African Americans instead began celebrating the holiday that became known as Emancipation Day. And they weren’t alone.

And so, African Americans created their own commemorative traditions. Starting on Jan. 1, 1808, African Americans in New York and Philadelphia celebrated the day the slave trade came to an official end. That date also marked the 1804 anniversary of Haitian independence.

After the war, holidays became a way for African Americans to keep alive their own history, especially as White Americans in the Jim Crow era again shut them out of public celebrations of July Fourth, and erected statues of Confederate generals and soldiers to promulgate a racist rendering of history. Such efforts encouraged Carter G. Woodson to found Negro History Week in 1926, in the second week of February to honor the birthdays of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

 

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DAM an African-American holiday! REPARATIONS to Native African-Americans is what deserves National Attention... Direct payments, Land/Housing/Health/Education/Business grants with Protections Under Law END Racial/Wealth Disprities REPARATIONS NOW!

Agreed - Christian Holidays are African American holidays. You are FakeNews

OK, what is the Aug 1st celebration all about?

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