Every year on June 19, African-Americans celebrate “Juneteenth,” the anniversary of the day slavery was abolished in Texas in 1865.
Two centuries later, we have yet to connect the dots between the denial of African-Americans’ human rights through slavery to the denial of unborn children’s human rights through abortion. There is definitely a parallel between the Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade decisions.
June 19 marks the day in 1865 when 2 1/2 years later word finally got to a group of slaves in Texas that they were free.
Yes, that was more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
This wryly historic date is celebrated around the country today. While often dwarfed by the following July 4 celebrations, the event has all the trappings of a Fourth of July party, and with good reason.
Independence and emancipation are very similar. We just had two parts of the country, and at different times, both with opposing beliefs, yet with varying people groups and ethnicities, fighting for freedom in different ways. But freedom for everybody ends up being the same.
And lest we forget, this year sandwiched in between Juneteenth and Independence Day will be July 2, the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Civil Rights Act. Let's remember to stand against the harmful impact of abortion and carcinogenic birth control/fertility blockers that kill babies and their mothers. Let them live; it's their civil right!
As director of African American Outreach and a member of the National Black ProLife Coalition I get to work with some very special people who have devoted their lives to the abolishment of abortion. Two such people are my good friends Walter Hoye, II and Ryan Bomberger.
I’d like to share a blog from Walter from www.issues4life.org, and graphics designed by Ryan at www.radiancefoundation.org. (We also recommend that you visit www.maafa21.org and www.africanamericanoutreach.org.)
Lesson: "The Negro Is The Key Of The Situation"
"The passion of selfishness, murder and rebellion are fired by slavery; the physical strength of rebellion is found less in the attenuated arm of the slaveholder, than in the sinewy arm of steel, which wields, without wages, the hoe and spade on the plantation. All this is plain. The very stomach of this rebellion is the Negro in the condition of a slave. Arrest that hoe in the hands of the Negro, and you smite rebellion in the very seat of its life. Change the status of the slave from bondage to freedom, and you change the rebels into loyal citizens. The Negro is the key of the situation, the pivot upon which the whole rebellion turns."
— Frederick Douglass, Douglass' Monthly, July, 1861
"This war, disguise it as they may, is virtually nothing more or less than perpetual slavery against universal freedom. The American people and Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time, but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end, that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery."
— Frederick Douglass
"Sound policy, not less than humanity, demands the instant liberation of every slave in the rebel states."
— Frederick Douglass, Douglass' Monthly, July, 1861
Abortion is a big business. A billion-dollar business. A business that views women and babies as commodities. A business where highly trained and licensed physicians and nurses, clean and well equipped medical facilities represent a drain on profits. A business where complying with the same public health and safety requirements as other surgical facilities negatively impacts the bottom line.
Dr. Alveda C. King grew up in the civil rights movement led by her uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She is a pastoral associate and director of African-American outreach for Priests for Life and Gospel of Life Ministries. Her family home in Birmingham, Ala., was bombed, as was her father’s church office in Louisville, Ky. Alveda herself was jailed during the open housing movement.