Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Today is what holiday?
Today is a holiday of no small significance to a certain people in a certain American state. If you know, answer in the comments. Fame and glory to the first person who gets it right without peeking.
If you don't know the answer, click here.
9 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jun 19, 11:02:00 AM:
Juneteenth,it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.
I didn't peek. :) Shall I expect to bask in Fame and Glory?
By , at
Tue Jun 19, 11:14:00 AM:
Juneteenth was a big deal in Texas when I lived there. It's a celebration of emancipation day.
RPD
By , at
Tue Jun 19, 11:29:00 AM:
By 
Escort81, at
Tue Jun 19, 11:33:00 AM:
I did not know that. Excellent piece of national trivia that shouldn't be trivia.
Maybe there should be a day that recognizes the failure of Reconstruction, although it would be hard to pinpoint one moment in the 1860s or 1870s that is worthy for selection. It has to be the worst domestic policy screw-up in the history of the post-Civil War U.S., leading to another century of second class citizenship for a large group of people in big part of the country.
This goes back a few decades, but as long as we are generally on the subject of Emancipation and the Civil War, can anyone explain why a progressive thinker like Joan Baez (and other who have covered this Robbie Robertson tune) would make a hit out of the song, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," which seems to lament the fall of the Confederacy? Why would people of that political stripe want to sing a song that regrets the fall of instituions which supported slavery? Isn't this akin to Cheryl Crow singing German Beer Hall songs from WWII (see the Mel Brooks movie "Blazing Saddles" for Madeline Kahn's brief satire of this)? Or the Dixie Chicks singing Islamist fight songs?
By GreenmanTim, at
Tue Jun 19, 12:24:00 PM:
I think a better analogy would have been if Joan Baez had made a hit covering "Sweet Home Alabama."
Robbie Robinson was a Canadian, not a Lost Cause apologist, and that gave him a different - through not unbiased - lens through which to view White southerners who were then (and arguably still are)largely incomprehensible to liberal northern types. A really interesting commentary and comprehensive review of the song and its influences here:
http://theband.hiof.no/articles/dixie_viney.html
By Escort81, at
Tue Jun 19, 01:31:00 PM:
GT - Thanks, excellent link. I had forgotten that the song in 1969 could be interpreted as anti-war, so the Baez connection makes sense. The commentary under the Morrison & Comager section was particularly helpful, concluding with:
(Levon, key member of The Band) "Helm has identified most strongly with African-American musicians from an early age, and the song has the power to envoke the tragedy of the South without ever condoning slavery."
I think one can acknowledge aspects of the culture of a defeated adversary without condoning the dominant politics of the defeated government, though it is a fine line to walk.
I recently watched again the series "Band of Brothers," and there is a scene in the final episode when a German general, who has surrendered, is giving a departing speech to his troops, while the Americans look on. The substance of the speech has nothing to do with the Nazi party, but has more to do with the bond that the German soldiers shared, obviously meant to draw a parallel to the overall theme of the series, from the standpoint of the Easy Company soldiers.
By Cobb, at
Tue Jun 19, 07:36:00 PM:
That 'certain American state' would be the state of blackness. Not a geography but a mentality.
Happy Juneteenth.
By , at
Wed Jun 20, 07:15:00 PM:
Juneteenth. In Mississippi it is Eta May.
Not sure what it is in Louisiana, Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina etc. If anyone knows, would be curious to hear.
Houston has a big jazz festival this weekend
By , at
Thu Jun 21, 01:05:00 AM:
juneteenth it sure beats having to celbrate a nonamerican holiday like CINO DE MAYO or KWANZA
