by ©2021 Sarah Becker Juneteenth On June 19th, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger entered Galveston, Texas, and announced the end of the Civil War, the belated end of southern slavery. General Order No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a [January 1, 1863] proclamation from the Executive of the United States [President Abraham Lincoln], all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equalityof personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor. The Freedmen are advised to remain at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.” Texans celebrated Juneteenth beginning in 1866. It was revived in 1979 and became an official state holiday in 1980. The Commonwealth of Virginia first acknowledged the June 19th jubilee in 2007—the 44th state to do so. Why so late to the table? Virginia—for more than 150 years—has championed southern history: Confederate Generals, Lee-Jackson Day, and the Lost Cause. “The lessons that negroes make a bad use of liberty is taught daily in the police court of this and all other cities in which they are numerous,” the Alexandria Gazette wrote on August 1, 1895. “Nearly all the cases before such courts are those of negroes, the parties to which are either sent to jail or the work house, put on the chain gang, or impoverished by fines. Before the Negroes were freed it was a rarity for one of them to be arrested…their money spent in the payment of fines.” “Between the idea of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the…
History Written by Parker A. Poodle ™ Copyright ©2021 Sarah Becker Poetry and the Pandemic by Parker A. Poodle ™ In this parent fatigued pandemic I, Parker A. Poodle, a reading education assistance dog, have been asked to help you “Spin your imagination a little faster.” To assure children “The shallowest breath will generate/ a haiku, limerick or well-pruned lyric.” Hospice nurses now write lyrics to help them cope with the Covid crisis; write poetry to process their ICU experiences. As of January 14 the total number of U.S. Covid-19 cases was 23,214,472. The number continues to climb. Covid-19 has taken a measurable toll. We have fought its spread for months and all are tired. Of social distancing, virtual distancing; stay at home orders and remote learning. School and library facilities are mostly closed and school test scores have declined. Home confinement is hard, I know! “I stare at the page, waiting for my wattage,/ wondering if it’s time to invest in/subsidized solar scripting,” British poet and pal Elisabeth Rowe penned. “Time rolls over/ like a puppy in the sunshine/ things I am paying attention to/ become weightless,” Rowe wrote In the Garden. Not so now. Most humans—it seems—feel weighed down, pandemic plagued, and overloaded. How can I, a canine assist? I encourage you to express your feelings in writing; to use poetry to explain the day’s exploits. To maybe cure what ails. A narrative poem is one that tells a tale, a story. A historical story perhaps, or—in the case of the pandemic—home life. Elise Paschen, editor of Poetry Speaks to Children, describes poetry as a “journey of discovery…filled with range—historically, poetically, and visually. Poetry is like a diving board, a place from which to plunge into [life’s] depths.” Poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) wrote To Flush, My Dog…
History Written by ©2020 Sarah Becker Copyright ©2020 Sarah Becker August 28th – 57th Anniversary of the March On Washington “The liberty attained by that soul which is converted from evil by the influence of Divine love, is the only liberty which truly deserves the name,” Quaker minister, abolitionist and Alexandria apothecary Edward Stabler wrote in 1825. “The difference between this state, which has been the happy possession of many whose bodies were in bonds,—and mere personal freedom, is so great, that the one may be designated as being of heaven, the other of the earth.” Quakers understood discrimination. In 1656 Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans greeted the first arriving Quakers with imprisonment. More than three hundred years later civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream: “Five score years ago, a great American [Abraham Lincoln], in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation [January 1, 1863]. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice….” “But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free,” Dr. King continued. “One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation [Jim Crow] and the chains of discrimination…[W]e have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.” “We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote,” Dr. King exclaimed. “No, no we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Justice as defined by The Oxford American Dictionary: “fairness, a fair claim; the…
by Sarah Becker ©2018 The South Secedes! More Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than in any other state. The majority of the clashes occurred between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, an interesting fact given Virginia’s initial reluctance to secede. “In spite of all excitement, rash conduct, and reckless language indulged in by the ultras at the South, we plainly perceive that the calm attitude and conservative course of Virginia, so far, is exercising its influence in several of the States around South Carolina,” the Alexandria Gazette reported on November 16, 1860. “Enough is known now to satisfy every body that Virginia will not favor ‘precipitate action…that she does not consider the election of Lincoln, as, of itself, ground for an attempt to break up and dissolve the Union….” “What is secession?” The New York Times then asked. “The Southern Disunionist journals are laying great stress on their assumed right to secede.” Said James Madison father of the Constitution in 1832, “It is high time that the [nullifiers] claim to secede at will should be put down by public opinion, and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by one who understands the subject.” After much political pondering—on April 17, 1861—delegates to Virginia’s secession convention voted 88-55 to depart the Union. The vote came only two weeks after the convention roundly rejected an April 4 secession proposal. What changed the delegates and, in turn, the public’s mind? Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln took his Presidential oath of office approximately three weeks after Virginia’s secession convention began. The 1860 Republican platform was clear: “That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is freedom.” Lawyer Lincoln’s 1861 inaugural message was also clear: “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of…
By Sarah Becker © 2017 An Act to Encourage Immigration Abraham Lincoln, in his 1864 holiday proclamation, praised Almighty God for augmenting “our free population by emancipation and by immigration…” To immigrate: to enter and settle in a foreign country. To naturalize: to admit a foreigner to citizenship. In 1790 naturalization was limited to “any Alien being a free white person who shall have resided within…the United States for a term of two years.” On July 4, 1864 the U.S. Congress “passed a bill to encourage immigration,” an Act President Lincoln signed into law the same day. The Act permitted foreign emigrants to enter as Alien contract labor “for a term not exceeding 12 months.” In 1864 America’s Civil War was ongoing and labor (common and otherwise) was in short supply. Particularly in the South’s pre-war cotton producing states. The 1860 Census “showed the aggregate population of the United States amounted to 31,041,977, an increase of 8,449,921 as compared with 1850.” Slaves accounted for 12.9% of the total population. The increase in free men was 38%, “a material increase due to immigration from abroad.” Between 1845-1850 Ireland’s potato famine brought approximately 500,000 immigrants to the United States. The Republican Party platform of 1860, the platform upon which President Lincoln was first elected, referenced immigration. The Party “opposed any change in our naturalization laws.” Especially as regards “free homestead policy” and or construction of “a railroad to the Pacific ocean.” “Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to…prevent them from coming,” President-elect Lincoln said. Ninety-three million Americans are descended from Homesteaders. In 1862 President Lincoln, an architect of a…
A holiday quiz: Which of the following contributed to the creation of America’s Thanksgiving holiday tradition(s)? Berkeley Company The Pilgrim George Washington Abraham Lincoln Calvin Coolidge Franklin D. Roosevelt Question 2, chose one: In which year did the chrysanthemum become the traditional Thanksgiving flower? 1845 1905 1942 Each contributed to the Thanksgiving holiday tradition in his own special way. The country’s first day of Thanksgiving was held in 1619 by order of the Berkeley Company. The chrysanthemum, the “Mrs. Roosevelt” bloom became the traditional Thanksgiving flower in 1905. The nation’s first day of Thanksgiving had a decidedly southern flair. “Wee Ordaine that the day of our ship [Margaret]’s arrivall at the place assigned for plantation [Berkeley] in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God,” The Berkeley Company ordered on December 4, 1619. “There, on the north shore of the James River, settlers, which included a young Episcopal clergyman, George Thorpe, followed these orders, knelt and held a thanksgiving service for their safe arrival.” Today Berkeley Plantation, located halfway between Richmond and Williamsburg, is known as the “most historic plantation on the James River.” It includes a First Thanksgiving Shrine. It is also the 18th century home of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his son President William Henry Harrison. The Pilgrim’s Plymouth, Massachusetts day of Thanksgiving was held one year and seventeen days after Berkeley’s. The Mayflower anchored off Plymouth on December 21, 1620 and the celebration lasted three days. Special Assistant to President John F. Kennedy Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. apologized to Virginians for the Massachusetts-born Executive’s 1962 Thanksgiving proclamation. He acknowledged an “undeniable New England bias.” The first presidential Proclamation of National Thanksgiving was issued on October 3, 1789, President George Washington’s inaugural year….
On January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation, a rewrite of a preliminary September 22, 1862 release, mostly freed the slaves. Civil War raged and Lincoln’s pen was mightier than the sword. “Liberty is a slow fruit,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in November 1862, “and now comes Lincoln’s Proclamation…The President by this act has paroled all the slaves in America; they will no more fight against us; and it relieves our race once and for all of its crime and false position.” Cotton: what wrath it wrought. Abraham Lincoln, Illinois lawyer and 16th President of the United States, was born February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky. The hard-working son of frontier farmers—Lincoln’s parents emigrated from Virginia—he spent his formative years in Indiana. Lincoln learned poetry from his stepmother, attended school “by-littles,” and joined a Springfield, Illinois Poetical Society in the late 1830s. Scottish poet Robert Burns was “a kindred spirit.” Abe wrote his first poem in his youth. “Abraham Lincoln/his hand and his pen/he will be good but/god knows When.” He penned his last documented verse on July 19, 1863 in response to the Union victory at Gettysburg. Until 1860 Abraham Lincoln had been only “an occasional critic of slavery.” Compromise was the challenge: The Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The latter overturned the Missouri Compromise. In 1854 Lincoln, a Congressional candidate, fought to repeal the Kansas-Nebraska Act. On October 16, 1854, in a three-hour speech in Peoria, Illinois, Lincoln addressed the slavery issue: “Let it not be said I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between whites and blacks…I am combating what is set up as moral argument for allowing [blacks] to be taken where they have never…