Today is not only Father’s Day, it’s also Juneteenth, the day which brought freedom to the last of all enslaved people in the United States. It’s also our newest federal holiday. That the two coincide has personal significance for our Mark Whitaker:
Juneteenth celebrations have already started this weekend in Galveston Texas, the city where the holiday has its roots. It was 157 years ago today, on June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger went from the piers to downtown Galveston reading General Order Number 3, which said that “all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.”
But it didn’t happen until two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
I have my own, personal connection to this story. This is the gravesite of my great-grandfather, Frank Whitaker, who was born enslaved in Texas in 1853.
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My great-grandfather was 11 when he was freed on Juneteenth.
Frank Whitaker is buried alongside his wife, Della, and one of his daughters, Julia, who died when she was just one year old. The tombstones are in a tiny, well-kept, all-Black cemetery, down a dirt road just outside the town of Jewett, about halfway between Houston and Dallas.
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An hour away, in Waco, I met my second-cousin, Bernice Bryant, for the first time.
“It’s only recently that I’ve become aware of this part of the family,” said Mark.
“Me, too!” Bernice said.
“So, we’re discovering each other after all this time.”
Frank Whitaker was also Bryant’s great-grandfather, and she actually met him as a child, when he was in his 80s and had lost his sight: “I’ve seen him one time,” she said. “He was blind. And he got very upset, because he went to crying. Because he was blind and he couldn’t see us.”
I sat down with Bernice; her daughter, Angela Tyler; and Tyler’s son, John Bible.
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For earlier generations, Juneteenth didn’t really change things all that much. John said, “You had slaves that were freed, but really had nowhere to go. They didn’t leave with a mule and land, anything like that.”
“They remained sharecropping,” Angela said. “They didn’t, like, venture out right immediately. They waited, and for years.” But they couldn’t buy or own their land.
My great-grandfather stayed close to the land, but he was able to get some education. In the decades after Juneteenth, Frank Whitaker became a sharecropper on white-owned land outside of Jewett. Most of his 13 children never left this area. But my grandfather, C. Sylvester Whitaker, Sr., migrated north to Pittsburgh and became an undertaker.
Before he died, he left this remembrance: “My father, an ex-slave, was very highly respected by all who knew him. He became a fine statistician and historian. Anyone wanting to know anything about the history of Leon County would go to my father. He wrote many articles for the Jewett Messenger, the village newspaper.”
Even into Bernice’s generation, many Texas descendants of Frank Whitaker picked crops. As children they all worked in the fields with their parents, picking and chopping cotton.
And back then, Juneteenth was just another day in the fields. They could not take a day off. “You’d get to eat,” laughed Bernice. “And then we would eat and go back to the field!”
Now, Juneteenth has spread from Texas into a national holiday. And my new-found relatives have come a long way, too. Angela is the director of a day care center, where Bernice also works. And John is the president and CEO of the Cen-Tex African American Chamber of Commerce, which boosts Black businesses. He helps organize the Waco Juneteenth celebration.
I asked Angela, “What should Juneteenth stand for?”
“I think it should be a time where you look back and see where we came from, and then celebrate where we are now, where we are trying to arrive,” she replied.
John said, “It being a federal holiday allows everyone to understand that there’s a second Independence Day, a true Independence Day in America, where everyone, you know, has a right to opportunity and freedoms. That’s truly an Independence Day. It’s not only for just Black people, but it’s for America.”
Juneteenth is surely about freedom. But for me, this year, it’s also about family.
CBS News
Story produced by Alan Golds. Editor: Ed Givnish.
Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/juneteenth-americas-second-independence-day/
For the first time, Colombia will have a leftist president.
Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a longtime senator who has pledged to transform the country’s economic system, has won Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results, setting the third largest nation in Latin America on a radically new path.
Mr. Petro received more than 50 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent counted Sunday evening. His opponent, Rodolfo Hernández, a construction magnate who had energized the country with a scorched-earth anti-corruption platform, just over 47 percent.
Shortly after the vote, Mr. Hernández conceded to Mr. Petro.
“Colombians, today the majority of citizens have chosen the other candidate,” he said. “As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of this election.”
Mr. Petro’s victory reflects widespread discontent in Colombia, with poverty and inequality on the rise and widespread dissatisfaction with a lack of opportunity, issues that sent hundreds of thousands of people to demonstrate in the streets last year.
“The entire country is begging for change,” said Fernando Posada, a Colombian political scientist, “and that is absolutely clear.”
The win is all the more significant because of the country’s history. For decades, the government fought a brutal leftist insurgency known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, with the stigma from the conflict making it difficult for a legitimate left to flourish.
But the FARC signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, laying down their arms and opening space for a broader political discourse.
Mr. Petro had been part of a different rebel group, called the M-19, which demobilized in 1990, and became a political party that helped rewrite the country’s constitution.
Both Mr. Petro and Mr. Hernández beat Federico Gutiérrez, a former big city mayor backed by the conservative elite, in a first round of voting on May 29, sending them to a runoff.
Both men had billed themselves as anti-establishment candidates, saying they were running against a political class that had controlled the country for generations.
Among the factors that most distinguished them was how they viewed the root of the country’s problems.
Mr. Petro believes the economic system is broken, overly reliant on oil export and a flourishing and illegal cocaine business that he said has made the rich richer and poor poorer. He is calling for a halt to all new oil exploration, a shift to developing other industries, and an expansion of social programs, while imposing higher taxes on the rich.
“What we have today is the result of what I call ‘the depletion of the model,’” Mr. Petro said in an interview, referring to the current economic system. “The end result is a brutal poverty.”
His ambitious economic plan has, however, raised concerns. One former finance minister called his energy plan “economic suicide.”
Mr. Petro will take office in August, and will face pressing issues with global repercussions: Lack of opportunity and rising violence, which have prompted record numbers of Colombians to migrate to the United States in recent months; high levels of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon, a critical buffer against climate change; and growing threats to democracy, part of a trend around the region.
He will face a deeply polarized society where polls show growing distrust in almost all major institutions.
Mr. Petro’s could also reshape Colombia’s relationship with the United States.
For decades, Colombia has been Washington’s strongest ally in Latin America, forming the cornerstone of its security policy in the region. During his campaign, Mr. Petro promised to reassess that relationship, including crucial collaborations on drugs, Venezuela and trade.
In the interview, Mr. Petro said his relationship with the United States would focus on working together to tackle climate change, specifically halting the rapid erosion of the Amazon.
“There is a point of dialogue there,” he said. “Because saving the Amazon rainforest involves some instruments, some programs, that do not exist today, at least not with respect to the United States. It is, in my opinion, the priority.”
Megan Janetsky contributed reporting from Bucaramanga, Colombia, and Sofía Villamil and Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/19/world/colombia-election-results
KYIV, June 19 (Reuters) – The situation north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is quite difficult as Russian forces have been trying to get closer to shell the city again, an official at Ukraine’s interior ministry said on Sunday.
“Russia is trying to make Kharkiv a frontline city,” Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to the interior minister, told Ukraine’s national television.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-troops-advance-towards-kharkiv-ukraine-official-2022-06-19/
Justin Flores, 35, died of a gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death was suicide, according to online records of the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.
Flores died on a sidewalk outside a motel on Tuesday after shooting El Monte Police Department Officer Joseph Santana, 31, and Cpl. Michael Paredes, 42.
The coroner’s records also show that Santana died from a gunshot wound to the head and Paredes was killed by gunshot wounds to the head.
The officers were sent to the motel to investigate a report that a woman had possibly been stabbed.
Mother of slain El Monte officer blames Gascón for son’s death: ‘He has insane ideas’
Sheriff’s homicide Capt. Andrew Meyer has said that the officers confronted the suspect and gunfire erupted inside the motel room. The gunman ran outside and there was more gunfire with other officers.
Flores was on probation for a gun charge at the time of the shooting, which occurred a day after his probation officer requested that he return to court later in the month, court records show.
A public candlelight vigil for the slain officers was held Saturday evening on the front steps of the El Monte civic center.
Source Article from https://abc7.com/el-monte-police-officers-shooting-shootout/11977185/
Juneteenth is meant to acknowledge Black emancipation from enslavement, but there’s a risk it could turn into just another day off, defined more by road trips and sales on mattresses.
The big picture: Corporations, retailers and some local governments are struggling with how to honor the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery.
Why it matters: Juneteenth became a federal holiday just last year. This year is the first time it’s been a holiday that anyone has been able to plan for.
What they’re saying: “When you live in a society like ours, there’s always the danger that these sorts of holidays will be absorbed into a kind of market, consumer-based. kind of logic or experience,” Eddie S. Glaude, chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University, told Axios.
Yes, but: Some companies are using Juneteenth as an opportunity for branding and community service.
Background: Juneteenth has been celebrated for years in Houston and Galveston, Texas, to commemorate U.S. Major General Gordon Granger issuing General Order No. 3 during the Civil War.
The bottom line: “Whether you’re having a barbecue and eating red velvet cake on Juneteenth and not thinking about slavery at all, or whether it is a program that has been organized so that we can think about it… without the holiday, those two different events wouldn’t have happened,” Glaude said.
Source Article from https://www.axios.com/2022/06/19/juneteenth-holiday-slavery-emancipation-travel-sales
NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) – Clothing retailer Kohl’s (KSS.N) is offering gray, green and red “Juneteenth 1865” tank tops and t-shirts for juniors and boys for $23.99. JCPenney.com hopes to lure shoppers with dozens of wall hangings featuring abstract graphic designs and silhouettes of Black women, priced at $60 to $160 apiece.
In the first big push to commercialize Juneteenth, commemorated by Black people for generations as the day in 1865 when a Union general informed a group of enslaved people in Texas that they were free, a handful of major retailers are rolling out merchandise.
But some of the goods, from cotton tank tops with red, yellow and green U.S. flags, to lawn accessories featuring slogans such as “Freedom,” are raising eyebrows among shoppers who accuse retailers of exploiting Juneteenth to cash in on President Joe Biden making June 19 a federal holiday in 2021.
In May, Walmart (WMT.N) began marketing pints of a new “Celebrated Edition” red velvet and cheesecake Juneteenth Ice Cream until complaints surfaced on Twitter, prompting Walmart to remove it.
“Just saw Pride and Juneteenth ice cream at Walmart I think we’re in the bad place,” one Twitter user posted on June 11.
Walmart said in a statement in May that the retailer had “received feedback that a few items caused concern for some of our customers.” The retailer apologized and said it will remove items as appropriate.
Walmart.com also sells an array of children’s books on the history of Juneteenth, as well as dozens of t-shirts.
Dollar Tree (DLTR.O) also drew criticism on social media for selling Juneteenth party decorations in non-traditional colors in May. The decorations are manufactured by vendors who aren’t descendants of slaves themselves, according to the National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants, an advocacy group that supports reparations for Black American descendants of slavery. Dollar Tree did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Connie Ross, vice president and chair of diversity, equity and inclusion at Empower consultancy, said Walmart and other brands should use the holiday to promote Black vendors.
“Juneteenth was not born out of a pretty story, but give it time, and people are going to find a way to associate it with something positive,” Ross said.
Ross expects more companies to “soften” the meaning of Juneteenth by avoiding its connections to the history of slavery.
Liz Rogers, a Black founder of Creamalicious ice creams which are sold in Walmart, Target (TGT.N) and Kroger (KR.N), said that none of her retail customers contacted her for Juneteenth partnerships or events and that she often has to pitch companies to get on their shelves.
JCPenney’s Chief Merchandising Officer Michelle Wlazlo said the company is donating any net profits from the sales of its Juneteenth merchandise to Unity Unlimited, a non-profit that says it helps communities “overcome racial and cultural division.” Wlazlo said JCPenney looks at customer feedback, traditional retail holidays and other factors to determine promotional events.
Brian Packer of public relations agency Golin said that brands looking to tap into Juneteenth should find ways to elevate products and services made by people in those communities. He said it is more complex than “putting a Black Power Fist on something.”
Alternatively, there also can be drawbacks to messages that are too subtle. In the product questions area of JCPenney.com’s $30 Masterpiece Art Gallery Juneteenth Framed Canvas Art, a series of orange shapes against a white background, one person asked: “What does this have to do with Juneteenth?”
Target, whose headquarters are in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by police, first acknowledged Juneteenth in 2020 as an official annual company holiday after the spread of national protests against police brutality. The company has provided internal resources detailing the history of Juneteenth and a list of community events for employees to participate in. Workers also can take the day off or work for overtime pay, it said.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/some-shoppers-balk-retailers-peddling-new-juneteenth-merchandise-2022-06-19/
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900, in Austin, Texas.
PICA-05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
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PICA-05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900, in Austin, Texas.
PICA-05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
On Sunday, churchgoers will commemorate and celebrate Juneteenth during their worship services. Throughout the day there will be colorful parades, coast-to-coast music festivals, visits to historical sites, large gatherings within local communities, team sports — and plenty of barbecue.
However, many will start the day with a long-standing tradition: worship.
These lyrics, from “The Song of the Contrabands: O Let My People Go,” will have a special significance at services this Sunday because they echo the spirit of the holiday. It’s a biblical story about the experience of Israel — from Egyptian bondage to their exodus. The enslaved Africans identified with the story. Generations later, this hymn is still sung to remember how it felt to be a slave and to continue to seek equality and justice.
“Gospel music has been a comfort to the Black community indeed,” says gospel singer Tye Tribbett, who is performing at the Juneteenth Unityfest 2022 event Sunday. “Its power to harness the ability of hope, aspiration, and faith to give courage over fear during our culture’s most difficult times is part of our and the music’s legacy.”
Congregants celebrate Juneteenth at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, on Sunday, June 19, 2016, following the annual march from the Old Galveston County Courthouse.
Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News
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Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News
Congregants celebrate Juneteenth at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, on Sunday, June 19, 2016, following the annual march from the Old Galveston County Courthouse.
Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News
In Galveston, Texas — the birthplace of Juneteenth — congregants at Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church will begin their service at 11 a.m. and end the day with a freedom march. This was one of the locations the enslaved people heard these words, from General Order, No. 3, the original Juneteenth order, on June 19, 1865: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
Juneteenth is also called Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day and Freedom Day. It’s the most recent new federal holiday, since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was introduced in 1983. Because it falls on “The Lord’s Day,” pastors will share a special message with their congregation.
Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House, in Dallas, says that in order to protect this nation’s legacy, one must acknowledge and learn from the past.
“Although the origin of Juneteenth commemorations begin in Texas, it’s vital we all must remember when liberty and justice is delayed or denied it causes traumatic ripples throughout future generations,” he says.
Jakes adds: “As we collectively stop to acknowledge and learn from the delayed liberties of our nation’s ancestors, we must not allow those same systems to repeat injustices.”
In San Francisco, Grace Cathedral congregants will celebrate and lament during their service. Actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith will deliver their morning message.
“Her deep knowledge and narrative accounts of the school-to-prison pipeline, and grounded Episcopal faith, will guide us toward the work of emancipation today. We call that End Slavery for Good, ensuring that no one be subject to slavery, even as punishment for a crime,” says the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi.
The Rev. Joshua Lawrence Lazard, associate pastor of Church of the Covenant, a predominantly white congregation in Boston, plans to take his sermon title from James Baldwin’s book, You Mean It or You Don’t.
“I will remind listeners that Christians have a duty to manifest the themes of liberation and freedom,” Lazard says. “Our faith requires us to be active in restoring and repairing the wrongs that stem from America’s original sin of slavery.”
According to historians, many American institutions played a role in justifying slavery and white supremacy — including the Christian church, which used the Bible to justify the enslavement of African Americans.
In the documentary, Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom, Christian apologist Lisa Fields says it doesn’t surprise her that the first institution that the emancipated people of Galveston established legally was a church. Fields says that “they were believing God to liberate them” – not Abraham Lincoln nor their slave masters.
That brings to mind another popular hymn that could be heard on Juneteenth Sunday — “We have come this far by faith,” written by Albert A. Goodson:
White Awake: An Honest Look At What It Means To Be White, by Daniel Hill
Rediscipling The White Church: From Cheap Diversity To True Solidarity by David Swanson
The Color Of Compromise: The Truth About The American Church’s Complicity In Racism, by Jemar Tisby
Be The Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart For Racial Reconciliation, by Latasha Morrison
Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion And The Problem Of Race In America, by Michael O. Emerson & Christian Smith
“25 Black Theologians Who Have Grown Our Faith” in Christianity Today
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/06/19/1105898257/juneteenth-church-services
The alleged gangbanger who gunned down two cops at a California motel killed himself after he fatally shot the officers, online coroner’s records said.
Justin Flores, 35, died by suicide on the sidewalk outside the Siesta Inn Motel, where he killed El Monte police Cpl. Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santana on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles County Department of the Medical Examiner-Coroner.
Flores’ cause of death was listed as a gunshot wound to the head. Officials had said Flores died during a shootout with other officers after he killed Paredes, 42, and Santana, 31, inside the motel as they responded to a domestic incident.
Paredes and Santana died from gunshot wounds to the head, coroner’s records said.
After fatally shooting the officers, Flores ran outside and gunfire was exchanged with other cops, officials previously said.
Progressive LA County District Attorney George Gascón has faced mounting scrutiny over the shooting, with Santana’s mother blaming the prosecutor for her son’s death.
Flores was out on probation at the time of the double homicide after he pleaded guilty to a charge of felony possession of a firearm last year.
Flores’ probation officer requested the alleged gang member return to court later this month, according to court records.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis, call the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
With Post Wires
Source Article from https://nypost.com/2022/06/19/gangbanger-who-killed-el-monte-cops-died-from-suicide-coroner/
KYIV, June 19 (Reuters) – The war in Ukraine could last for years, the head of NATO said on Sunday, calling for steadfast support from Ukraine’s allies as Russian forces battle for territory in the country’s east.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said supplying state-of-the-art weaponry to Ukrainian troops would boost the chance of freeing its eastern region of Donbas from Russian control, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported. read more
After failing to take the capital Kyiv early on in the war, Russian forces have focused efforts on trying to take complete control of the Donbas, parts of which were already held by Russian-backed separatists before the Feb. 24 invasion.
“We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine,” Stoltenberg was quoted as saying.
“Even if the costs are high, not only for military support, also because of rising energy and food prices.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who visited Kyiv on Friday with an offer of training for Ukrainian forces, also said on Saturday it was important Britain provide support for the long haul, warning of a risk of “Ukraine fatigue” as the war drags on. read more
In an opinion piece in London’s Sunday Times, Johnson said this meant ensuring “Ukraine receives weapons, equipment, ammunition and training more rapidly than the invader”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has rallied citizens with daily filmed messages, said he had visited forces in the southern Mykolaiv region, about 550 km (340 miles) south of Kyiv.
“Their mood is assured: they all do not doubt our victory,” he said in a video on Sunday that appeared to have been recorded on a moving train. “We will not give the south to anyone, and all that is ours we will take back.”
In Mykolaiv and Odesa regions, Zelenskiy said he had heard reports on destruction from Russian strikes.
“The losses are significant. Many houses have been destroyed; civilian logistics have been disrupted,” he said.
A top target in Moscow’s offensive to seize full control of Luhansk region – one of the two provinces making up the Donbas – is the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, where the Ukrainian military said fighting and shelling continued.
“All Russian claims that they control the town are a lie. They control the main part of the town, but not the whole town,” Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television, adding that fighting made evacuations from the city impossible.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had taken control of Metyolkine, just southeast of Sievierodonetsk, with Russian state news agency TASS reporting that many Ukrainian fighters had surrendered there. Ukraine’s military said Russia had “partial success” in the area.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a note that “Russian forces will likely be able to seize Sievierodonetsk in the coming weeks, but at the cost of concentrating most of their available forces in this small area”.
In Sievierodonetsk’s twin city of Lysychansk, residential buildings and private houses had been destroyed, Gaidai said. “People are dying on the streets and in bomb shelters,” he added.
In Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, northwest of Luhansk, Russia’s defence ministry said its Iskander missiles had destroyed weaponry recently supplied by Western countries.
Russian forces were trying to approach Kharkiv, which experienced intense shelling in the first two months of the war, and turn it into a “frontline city”, a Ukrainian interior ministry official said. read more
West of Donbas, Russian missiles hit a fuel storage depot in Novomoskovsk, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration chief said. Video verified by Reuters showed thick black smoke rising into the air.
To the south, Western weaponry had helped Ukrainian forces advance 10 km (6 miles) towards Russian-occupied Melitopol, its mayor said in a video posted on Telegram from outside the city.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield accounts.
Russia has said it launched what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm its neighbour and protect Russian speakers there from dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and its allies dismissed that as a baseless pretext for a war of aggression.
Ukraine received a significant boost on Friday when the European Commission recommended it for candidate status, a decision EU nations are expected to endorse at a summit this week. Actual membership could take years. read more
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/nato-warns-long-ukraine-war-russian-assaults-follow-eu-boost-kyiv-2022-06-19/
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900, in Austin, Texas.
PICA-05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
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toggle caption
PICA-05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
Emancipation Day celebration, June 19, 1900, in Austin, Texas.
PICA-05476, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
On Sunday, churchgoers will commemorate and celebrate Juneteenth during their worship services. Throughout the day there will be colorful parades, coast-to-coast music festivals, visits to historical sites, large gatherings within local communities, team sports — and plenty of barbecue.
However, many will start the day with a long-standing tradition: worship.
These lyrics, from “The Song of the Contrabands: O Let My People Go,” will have a special significance at services this Sunday because they echo the spirit of the holiday. It’s a biblical story about the experience of Israel — from Egyptian bondage to their exodus. The enslaved Africans identified with the story. Generations later, this hymn is still sung to remember how it felt to be a slave and to continue to seek equality and justice.
“Gospel music has been a comfort to the Black community indeed,” says gospel singer Tye Tribbett, who is performing at at the Juneteenth Unityfest 2022 event Sunday. “Its power to harness the ability of hope, aspiration, and faith to give courage over fear during our culture’s most difficult times is part of our and the music’s legacy.”
Congregants celebrate Juneteenth at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, on Sunday, June 19, 2016, following the annual march from the Old Galveston County Courthouse.
Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News
hide caption
toggle caption
Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News
Congregants celebrate Juneteenth at Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas, on Sunday, June 19, 2016, following the annual march from the Old Galveston County Courthouse.
Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News
In Galveston, Texas — the birthplace of Juneteenth — congregants at Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church will begin their service at 11 a.m. and end the day with a freedom march. This was one of the locations the enslaved people heard these words, from General Order, No. 3, the original Juneteenth order, on June 19, 1865: ‘The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. …”
Juneteenth is also called Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day and Freedom Day. It’s the most recent new federal holiday, since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was introduced in 1983. Because it falls on “The Lord’s Day,” pastors will share a special message with their congregation.
Bishop T.D. Jakes of The Potter’s House, in Dallas, says that in order to protect this nation’s legacy, one must acknowledge and learn from the past.
“Although the origin of Juneteenth commemorations begin in Texas, it’s vital we all must remember when liberty and justice is delayed or denied it causes traumatic ripples throughout future generations,” he says.
Jakes adds, “… as we collectively stop to acknowledge and learn from the delayed liberties of our nation’s ancestors, we must not allow those same systems to repeat injustices.”
In San Francisco, Grace Cathedral congregants will celebrate and lament during their service. Actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith will deliver their morning message.
“Her deep knowledge and narrative accounts of the school-to-prison pipeline, and grounded Episcopal faith, will guide us toward the work of emancipation today. We call that End Slavery for Good, ensuring that no one be subject to slavery, even as punishment for a crime …,” says the Rev. Canon Anna E. Rossi.
The Rev. Joshua Lawrence Lazard, associate pastor of Church of the Covenant, a predominantly white congregation in Boston, plans to take his sermon title from James Baldwin’s book, You Mean It or You Don’t.
“I will remind listeners that Christians have a duty to manifest the themes of liberation and freedom,” Lazard says. “Our faith requires us to be active in restoring and repairing the wrongs that stem from America’s original sin of slavery…”
According to historians, many American institutions played a role in justifying slavery and white supremacy — including the Christian church, which used the Bible to justify the enslavement of African Americans.
In the documentary, Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom Christian apologist Lisa Fields says it doesn’t surprise her that the first institution that the emancipated people of Galveston established legally was a church. Fields says “they were believing God to liberate them” – not Abraham Lincoln nor their slave masters.
That brings to mind another popular hymn that could be heard on Juneteenth Sunday — “We have come this far by faith,” written by Albert A. Goodson:
White Awake: An Honest Look At What It Means To Be White, by Daniel Hill
Rediscipling The White Church: From Cheap Diversity To True Solidarity by David Swanson
The Color Of Compromise: The Truth About The American Church’s Complicity In Racism, by Jemar Tisby
Be The Bridge: Pursuing God’s Heart For Racial Reconciliation, by Latasha Morrison
Divided By Faith: Evangelical Religion And The Problem Of Race In America, by Michael O. Emerson & Christian Smith
25 Black Theologians Who Have Grown Our Faith in Christianity Today
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/06/19/1105898257/juneteenth-church-services
Cenk Bulbul, a single dad by choice, with his youngest daughter Gaia Bulbul in New York, NY. Cenk had both his daughters via the same surrogate using donor eggs and his sperm to make the embryos that were implanted.
Jackie Molloy for NPR
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Jackie Molloy for NPR
Cenk Bulbul, a single dad by choice, with his youngest daughter Gaia Bulbul in New York, NY. Cenk had both his daughters via the same surrogate using donor eggs and his sperm to make the embryos that were implanted.
Jackie Molloy for NPR
Fatherhood comes in many different forms, from the dads who are there from your first steps, to the ones you meet later in life.
NPR spoke to three men, single gay fathers, who chose to become dads via surrogacy, after years of coming to terms with their identities, their families, and the technological advances that have made journeys like this possible.
CENK BULBUL
Cenk Bulbul is originally from Turkey. He came to the United States in 1994 – the early days of a tool that would help him, and countless others, understand the emotions for which they didn’t yet have the words: the World Wide Web.
“The things that I was feeling as a young man, but I didn’t know what they were because there weren’t any public examples where I used to live in Turkey and even at Carnegie Mellon [University],” Bulbul says of his time exploring the internet while getting his masters degree in Pennsylvania.
“At that point in 1994, you didn’t see many gays [on] the campus. So I realized I was gay, but I was like scared, confused.”
While he was finally able to label his romantic feelings, he still felt lost. So he went back home to Turkey and completed his compulsory military service, before returning to the United States – this time to New York – where he completed a doctorate program.
“Here I am, like, 20 years later.”
Cenk Bulbul, a single dad by choice, with his daughters Emi and Gaia. Cenk’s mother, Norton Bulbul, was also in town visiting from Turkey, where he was born.
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Journey to fatherhood
Bulbul had always dreamed of being a father. In his youth, he would imagine himself in the year 2000 – 28 years old – married, to a woman, with two young children.
“Then I came out in 2002,” he says. “There were no examples of same-sex parents or single parents by choice of any sort around me, even like adoption circles.
“And then as the decades went on, more and more, as I became more comfortable with who I am, I started seeing examples and, you know, then the legislation started changing, and that also started to bring more families of different backgrounds to the surface. And that childhood dream of mine started to nag me.”
Cenk takes Emi grocery shopping and then gets her ready for bed. Cenk had both his daughters via the same surrogate using donor eggs and his sperm to make the embryos that were implanted.
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Initially, Bulbul wanted to adopt. But the process for single people, particularly relatively older gay men, he says, was difficult.
“If I’m going to be a parent, I should just try to find the shortest route at this point because, you know, it’s not fair to the children that they have a geriatric parent. I wanted to be around,” he says.
In 2017, his first daughter, Emi Jules, was born via surrogate. In 2021, in the throes of COVID, Bulbul welcomed his second daughter, Gaia Mine, with the same surrogacy partner.
“Her first name, Gaia, means, Mother Earth. And to me, that was very suitable for a kid that’s just going to grow up in a warming planet, whose future is under jeopardy. So I thought she’d be the future president,” he says with a laugh.
Dr. Diarra K. Lamar, M.D., a single dad by choice, with his daughter Archie Madeleine Lamar at a park in New York, NY.
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DIARRA LAMAR
At 2 1/2 years old, Archie is a precocious toddler with multi-colored bows adorning her hair and a vocabulary that belies her age.
“It’s a specific language,” says her dad, Diarra Lamar. “I speak Archie. Do you speak Daddy,” he asks, turning to the sunglassed toddler at his side.
Archie responds yes, before asking her dad if he remembers the “Wheels on the Bus” and reminding him that she likes vanilla.
Lamar, who now calls New York home, grew up in Mobile, Ala. Black, gay and heavyset in the South, he was raised by a single mother in a family of single mothers.
“Despite what one might expect, given those characteristics – that geography, those circumstances – who I am as a person has made me seemingly oblivious to those perceived constraints,” he says.
“Yeah, you know, people would say derisive things about me, but I didn’t really care,” he says. “And the reason I didn’t care was my mama loved me and my grandmother loved me.”
It was because of the love he felt in his family, and the strength of the women around him, he says he felt it was his duty to bring a child into the world.
“My mother is a phenomenal woman,” he says. “My grandmother was a phenomenal woman. My aunt is a phenomenal woman. My uncle is a brilliantly creative man. My great-grandfather was a giant. The world needs to see the next generation.”
And so in 2016, he began the process for Archie to be born.
Dr. Diarra K. Lamar, M.D., at home with his daughter Archie Madeleine Lamar.
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Journey to fatherhood
A three time Harvard-educated medical professional, Lamar speaks with a clinical detachment about getting viable embryos and finding a surrogate.
“My mom had said in a couple of conversations that we had had … ‘Oh, if I’m around then,'” recalls Lamar. “And we had never talked about my having kids, but it was in the context of other things. And when she said that, I was like, ‘Oh, okay, I really got to get going.'”
“It was a very long journey,” to parenthood, he says.
There were several bumps in the road, including one of his potential surrogates having to excuse herself because her husband suffered a suicide attempt and another being involved in a major car crash right before the implantation was scheduled.
But in January 2020, Archie was born – named in honor of her late great-great-grandfather.
“But we [Lamar, his mother and newborn Archie] got off the train in Penn Station and, you know, came directly home. And my mom has not left since.”
In the early months of Archie’s life, she lived with her grandma in an apartment Lamar got for her, just a short walk away from his own rent-controlled apartment in the West Village.
“I did my work during the day, at 5:30 or so, I would go over and make dinner for us to eat, play with Archie and, you know, do all the things,” he says, “put her down around ten-ish or so with a [late-night feeding] at midnight. And then I would walk over back home at midnight, rinse and repeat.”
Now, the three live in a brightly colored three bedroom apartment, six blocks away from the Montessori school Archie attends.
“I believe that Archie is special,” Lamar says. “I believe that she deserves a disproportionate share of all those things that are good, and a disproportionately low share of all those things that are bad. And I believe it is my honor, task, job, privilege to make sure that happens unapologetically.”
“I know that she was meant for me,” he says. “I was meant for her.”
Dustin Ling, single dad by choice, with his son Spencer Kai Ling.
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DUSTIN LING
“Sometimes the gay community is seen as, oh, it’s the funny guy who’s always about fashion or always about travel,” says Dustin Ling.
“Fathers – gay fathers and mothers – come in different and various forms, not just that one-note identity. We can be many things, and you can be those things and be a parent as well.”
Raised on the island nation of Aruba to Asian parents, Ling says there weren’t many examples of gay men around.
“When you’re somebody who is an underrepresented minority, you don’t realize what’s possible,” he says.
Journey to fatherhood
Ling’s son was born in May 2021, after a difficult surrogacy search.
“You have to sell yourself, right. And the surrogate, maybe some surrogates want to help straight parents. Some surrogates want to only help couples,” Ling says. “Some surrogates want to help a single mom who wants to have a child because she can’t. And then you’re kind of there as the person of color or as the single dad. So it took a while to even just find a surrogate.”
The baby, a rosy-cheeked 13 month old, is named after Ling’s brother, who died by suicide in 2015.
“His first name is Spencer, honoring my brother,” Ling says. “His second name is Kai, which really signifies the ocean, since we’re from the Caribbean.”
As a new parent during COVID, Ling’s experience has had its challenges.
“The birth is kind of like such a moment where you want to celebrate and you want to have family over, want to have friends over,” Ling says. “And the first year was like, ‘Actually, no thanks, don’t come for now,’ because we want to protect Spencer from any type of exposure.”
Dustin Ling, single dad by choice, with his son Spencer Kai Ling.
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The pair got COVID in April, which made childcare difficult, since Ling’s parents often visit from Aruba to help with the baby.
“The parents that you’re kind of taking care of, as well, because they’re intimately involved with my son’s life,” he says. “You’re concerned about your elders, the elders in the family, given that they’re in their seventies. And you’re concerned about Spencer, who, you know, doesn’t have the vaccine.”
But in their time together, exacerbated by the isolation of the pandemic, Ling says he and Spencer have spent time learning one another.
“He’s got an amazing will to him,” Ling says.
It’s a determination the two have in common. Despite the challenges of life as a single gay dad in New York, Ling remains an optimist.
He said he is still hopeful to find romantic love, and plans to begin a new surrogacy journey in a few months.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/06/19/1106059390/three-single-gay-dads-reflect-on-fatherhood-surrogacy-journeys
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s federal police said Saturday that a third suspect in the deaths of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira has been arrested. The pair, whose remains were found after they went missing almost two weeks ago, were shot to death, according to an autopsy.
Phillips was shot in the chest and Pereira was shot in the head and the abdomen, police said in a statement. It said the autopsy indicated the use of a “firearm with typical hunting ammunition.”
Police said the third suspect, Jefferson da Silva Lima, known as Pelado da Dinha, turned himself at the police station in Atalaia do Norte in the Amazon.
Police said the suspect will be referred to a custody hearing.
Two other men are already in prison for alleged involvement in the killings: Amarildo Oliveira, known as Pelado, and his brother, Oseney de Oliveira, known as Dos Santos.
Phillips and Pereira were last seen June 5 on their boat on the Itaquai river, near the entrance of the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia.
On Friday, federal police said that human remains found in Brazil’s remote Amazon have been identified as belonging to Phillips, 57.
Additional remains found at the site near the city of Atalaia do Norte were confirmed to belong to Indigenous expert Pereira, 41, according to the police statement on Saturday.
The remains were found on Wednesday, after fisherman Pelado confessed to killing the pair, and took police to the place where he would have buried the bodies. He told officers that he used a firearm to commit the crime.
The remains had arrived in the capital city of Brasilia on Thursday for forensic examinations.
The area where Phillips and Pereira went missing has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers, and government agents.
Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-brazil-brasilia-arrests-forensics-7a040a92851fe20c21d388fc7b7027db
One of CRC Advisors’ biggest clients is the Republican Attorneys General Association. Another is the Concord Fund, the advocacy group that is the latest incarnation of the Judicial Crisis Network. The fund is also the largest financial backer, by far, of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Since 2014, the Judicial Crisis Network, now the Concord Fund, has poured more than $17 million into the campaigns of the Republican attorneys general. In the current electoral cycle, the Concord Fund has contributed $3.5 million, several times more than the next biggest donor, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with $800,000.
The identities of the fund’s donors are hidden from the public; the fund is not legally required to disclose them.
Relationships between untraceable money, politicians and the judiciary are not unusual. Like its Republican counterpart, the Democratic Attorneys General Association is a political action committee that raises money to help members win elections. The attorneys general in both parties pursue cases that are aligned with the interests of their donors and constituencies. During the Trump administration, Democratic attorneys general repeatedly, and often successfully, fought dozens of Mr. Trump’s policies, particularly his weakening of environmental rules.
But legal experts say that the Republican attorneys general and their allies have taken such strategies to a new level, in their funding and their tactics.
“They’ve created out of whole cloth a new approach to litigating environmental regulations, and they’ve found sympathetic judges,” said Richard Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/climate/supreme-court-climate-epa.html
His connections with the far-right, meanwhile, were growing. Thiel, who had long been a quiet donor to conservative think tanks became a funder of the National Conservatism Conference, an emerging venue for rising populist figures on the right. He grew closer with Johnson, who’d met Thiel at a conference while a college student, and who has been permanently banned from Twitter since 2015, for allegedly attacking a Black Lives Matter activist. (Johnson, who has sued Twitter over his suspension, says his removal was unfair and that his tweet was “part of a journalistic project.”)
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/19/peter-thiel-facebook-new-right/
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Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The suspect who is accused of killing two California police officers during a shootout on Tuesday night died by suicide after allegedly shooting the pair of cops.
Justin William Flores, 35, allegedly killed two El Monte, California police officers while they responded to reports of a stabbing at a motel.
When the officers, Cpl. Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santana, approached the suspect, a shootout took place and both officers were shot. They were later pronounced dead at a Los Angeles area hospital.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office determined that Flores died by suicide as a result of a gunshot wound to the head, according to its website.
This photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Justin William Flores who is the alleged gunman in a Southern California shootout that killed two police officers on Tuesday, June 14, 2022 in El Monte, Calif. Flores was identified as the suspect by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday, June 15, 2022.
(California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP)
Flores had a previous strike conviction and also received two years of probation for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The sentence is aligned with the policies of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, who has been taken to court over his handling of three-strike cases.
Flores was a gang member who was on probation at the time of the shooting for a weapons charge after he received a lenient sentence through a plea deal.
The Gascon policy allowed Flores to plead no contest and get a light sentence, despite a strike being on his criminal record.
The city of El Monte announced Corporal Michael Paredes and Officer Joseph Santana were killed in the line of duty.
(City of El Monte)
Sources within the district attorney’s office told Fox News that Flores would have likely been handed a sentence of up to three years in prison if he was prosecuted in February 2021.
Gascon’s office told Fox News that Flores didn’t have a “documented history of violence” when he was sentenced.
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Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon speaks at a press conference, December 8, 2021 in Los Angeles. On Thursday, Gascon reversed a directive that barred prosecutors from seeking cash bail, according to a memo.
(Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP)
“The sentence he received in the firearm case was consistent with case resolutions for this type of offense given his criminal history and the nature of the offense,” the statement says. “At the time the court sentenced him, Mr. Flores did not have a documented history of violence.”
Fox News’ Louis Casiano and Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-suspect-allegedly-killed-two-el-monte-police-officers-died-suicide-coroner
You can find KENS 5 in more places than ever before, including KENS5.com, the KENS 5 app, the KENS 5 YouTube channel, KENS 5’s Roku and Fire TV apps, and across social media on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and more!
Source Article from https://www.kens5.com/article/news/special-reports/uvalde-school-shooting/uvalde-roob-elementary-school-shooting-police-investigation/273-fa58a24a-072e-4f66-8dd4-a717c6ce29dd
PHILADELPHIA — A building caught fire and later collapsed in Philadelphia, killing one firefighter and injuring five other people, two critically, after all became trapped early Saturday, authorities said.
The fire was reported just before 2 a.m. Saturday in the building in north Philadelphia, eight occupants were safely evacuated and the fire had been declared under control, officials said. At 3:24 a.m., the building collapsed, Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said.
Lt. Sean Williamson, 51, was pronounced dead at the scene after he and another firefighter were freed from the rubble hours after the collapse. Three other firefighters and an inspector with the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections had been freed quickly. One firefighter jumped from the second story to avoid being caught in the collapse, Murphy said. Two firefighters were listed in critical but stable condition at Temple University Hospital while the other three victims were treated and released, officials said.
Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel told reporters Saturday evening that rescuers “were able to communicate with” Williamson and another firefighter for most of the several hours they remained trapped, but because of the degree of the collapse and where Williamson was located within the structure “we were not able to save him.”
The former Marine was “highly respected throughout our department” and had trained “countless” cadets, Thiel said. Williamson is to have a “full honors” fire department funeral “and given the outpouring of support that I’ve seen and we’ve seen as a department, you can expect this to be a pretty large event.”
“We’re absolutely grieving, we’re mourning,” Thiel said. “We have a lot more crying and a lot more processing to do this unfolds as we move forward with properly honoring Lt. Williamson,” he said. Murphy had told reporters at a briefing at about 8 a.m. Saturday that: “It’s going to be a rough few weeks coming up.”
Mayor Jim Kenney called it “a heartbreaking day for our city.”
“For more than 27 years, he dedicated his life to serving and protecting the people of Philadelphia, and sacrificed his life protecting others,” Kenney’s statement said. “Early this morning, like every day, he exemplified heroism by doing what our first responders do every day: put on their uniform, leave their loved ones, and carry out their sworn duty to protect and serve the residents of this city.”
The fire marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire with assistance from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Thiel said an engineering investigation into the collapse is also ongoing and the federal National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health is also expected to do an investigation, and that and the department’s own after-action report are expected to take one to two years.
Numerous firefighters were standing nearby as the rescue effort unfolded, and some were seen hugging or wiping tears from their eyes, multiple news outlets reported.
Patricia Sermarini told The Philadelphia Inquirer that she rushed to the site when she saw the alert about the collapse because her son-in-law, a firefighter, was on the morning shift. She said he had been one of the firefighters on scene but had made it out of the building just before it collapsed.
But moments later, Sermarini said, she saw firefighters pull a body out from the rubble.
“It’s so terrible,” she said. “This is so hard for them. They just want to get home to their families.”
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/firefighters-trapped-philadelphia-building-collapse-85480140
Louisville Metro police are investigating after Mayor Greg Fischer was assaulted at Fourth Street Live on Saturday night.
According to mayor’s office spokesperson Jessica Wethington, Fischer was at Fourth Street Live earlier this evening when he was approached by an individual who then proceeded to punch him.
The mayor is doing fine, said Wethington.
Louisville Metro Police Department is investigating the incident and has released photos of the suspect that they believe is responsible for the assault.
LMPD said that they will release further information as it becomes available. They have also asked anyone with information on the assault to call 502-574-LMPD.
Source Article from https://www.wlky.com/article/mayor-greg-fischer-assaulted-louisville-metro-police-investigating/40335988
Robert Findlay Smith, the man charged with killing three people in a Birmingham-area church last week, is a formerly licensed federal gun dealer cited and warned by federal authorities for failing to keep a record of firearms he sold, reports show.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms issued Smith a warning letter, the least severe action possible, on Feb. 7, 2018 after an “on site … compliance investigation” at Smith’s residence at 4128 Sicard Hollow Road in Birmingham, according to press reporting on American gun dealers and manufacturers.
Smith had not recorded the sale or other disposition of a firearm in the required seven days, an ATF timeline said, and he could not locate firearms listed in his inventory.
Read more: Alabama churches plan worship services Sunday with safety in mind.
Smith, 70, is facing capital murder charges in the shooting deaths of a man and two women killed during a Thursday night potluck supper at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. Vestavia Hills police Friday identified the slain victims as Walter “Bart” Rainey, 84, of Irondale, Sarah Yeager, 75, of Pelham and Jane Pounds, 84, of Hoover.
A man calling himself “Mr. Smith” was sitting alone at a “Boomers Potuck” dinner at the church when a longtime church member approached and invited him to sit at a table, the Rev. Doug Carpenter told AL.com. Carpenter founded the church in 1973 and retired in 2005.
See complete coverage of the Vestavia Hills church shooting here.
“Mr. Smith” refused to join them and later pulled out a handgun and shot three people, Carpenter said.
Jim Musgrove, a church member, hit the shooter with a chair and wrestled the gun away from him, Carpenter said. Police called Musgrove a “hero” by police for “saving lives” at the church.
Smith’s ATF encounter was recorded by The Trace and USA Today as part of a joint investigation into “how the ATF inspects gun dealers and manufacturers.” That reporting includes an interactive database of reports on federal inspections that led to citations or other actions.
Smith’s federal firearms investigation took a total of 83 hours, the report said, and the inspection period ran from Sept. 18, 2016 to Sept. 18, 2017.
The ATF report said agents found 86 firearms in Smith’s possession compared to 97 on his official dealer’s record. Smith failed to record the disposition of some firearms, the report said. He also failed to record the address of gun buyers, the report said.
(AL.com reporter Carol Robinson contributed to this report)
Source Article from https://www.al.com/news/2022/06/church-shooting-suspect-was-licensed-gun-dealer-warned-by-federal-agents-about-missing-guns.html
