Juneteenth

Juneteenth as a holiday upsets my sense of order. People keep calling it the day slavery ended and that's just not true.

Slavery hadn't ended in the entire US by June 19th, 1865. Only in the states of the Confederacy in areas not under Union control. Slavery didn't end until December 6th, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified. June 19th, 1865 is simply the date when some random group of slaves found out they had been freed by presidential order two years previously. The only "holiday" that made less sense than "Juneteenth" was "Columbus Day" which celebrated some Italian dude, working for Spain, who accidentally bumped into Hispaniola, while trying to find India and proceeded to treat the indigenous people there terribly. Dates which might make more sense would be December 6th as explained above, September 22nd which was the date on which Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 or April 3rd which was the date that black regiments (some say the first was the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry and others that it was the 29th Connecticut Infantry) entered Richmond and insured that the Confederacy, and by extension slavery, were doomed. Oh, by the way, the freed slaves were not citizens in June of 1865 because the Dred Scott decision was still in force. The 14th Amendment fixed that so June 9th, the date that the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 and the former slaves became citizens, might make more sense as well.

Some may call this petty but I find it annoying that those who whine about the distortion of history have no problem with distorting it themselves when it serves their purpose.