150th Anniversary of Juneteenth Celebration - 6/20/21st 2015 @ Leimert Park

Black Arts Los Angeles (BALA), 6th Anniversary, in full swing.
Join in celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Juneteenth
in Leimert Park. #BALAEvent2015

Black Arts Los Angeles (BALA) a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is throwing there 6th Anniversary of there stepping into the ring, and including the 150th Juneteenth Celebration, in honor of the fact that according to the Emancipation Proclamation, all slaves in America were free.


The battle of Antietam (a.k.a. Sharpsburg) set the stage, providing the necessary Union victory needed  to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Henry Louis Stephens, untitled watercolor (c1863),
black man reading a newspaper w/ headline
"Presidential Proclamation/Slavery".
(wikipedia.org)

Images courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on Jan. 1, 1863. The writing on the bottom of this copy, in the hand of Charles Sumner, a senator from Massachusetts, states that this was an “official copy from the Department of State.” The document is part of the Houghton Library collection.

The facts are, President Lincoln, via an executive order, issued January 1, 1863, changed the legal status, as recognized by the US Fed Government, of 3 million slaves in the designated areas of the South, from "slave" to "free". The ratification of the 13th Amendment,
Dec 1865, made slavery and indentured servitude, expect for those duly convicted of a crime, illegal, everywhere subject to the Unites States jurisdiction. 

African American Men - Military Service in the Civil War

earned the right to go from being held in captivity, 

to being free citizens in America. 

(Photo: Wikipedia.org)

considered the Emancipation Proclamation the crowing achievement of his presidency/career.
Quiet as it's kept, President Lincoln had to issue the Emancipation Proclamation twice.


Fast-forward to today. America, the Beautiful. We've got work to do. 




As the late, Dr. Maya Angelou said in
"Still I Rise"  -
 "Out of the huts of history and shame -
I rise. 
I am the dream and the hope of the slave -
I rise.
I rise.
I rise.  

Love & light.
Carla

Black Arts Los Angeles is a 501(c)3) founded by Moza Mjasiri Cooper and Gail Jennings.