June 19 Is African-American Emancipation Day!!!!

June 19 is the day that people observe the end of slavery.Isn't it quite fitting that Congress would apologize for slavery the day before African-American Emancipation Day?

Here's more info from Juneteenth.com:

"Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.

From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.

Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement."(END OF EXCERPT)Learn more about this day here.

John Barnes Is 100% Not The Missing Boy From 1955!

The man who is really the father of John Barnes said that his son was spreading "foolishness" when he claimed to be a missing boy from 1955!And it turns how that the amazing story that John Barnes told the world really was nothing but a work of his imagination.

You know,his story really did not sound credible to me.That is why I waited to see what the end result would be before I did a post on this guy.

Maybe all of this speculation was just an unemployed man's way of getting his hands on some dough.Too bad for him that it did not turn out to be true.Because he has pissed his real family off!

And it was all for naught.

Here's more from cbs4Denver:

"DNA testing confirmed that a 54-year-old Michigan man is not a toddler kidnapped in Long Island, N.Y., in 1955, the FBI said Thursday.

The FBI said testing showed John Barnes of Kalkaska, Mich., is not Stephen Damman, who disappeared at age 2 from outside an East Meadow bakery while his mother shopped.

"DNA samples analyzed by the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, show John Barnes and Pamela Damman Horne do not share the same mother," the FBI said in a statement, referring to the sister of Stephen Damman.

Barnes has said he has long suspected the couple who raised him are not his biological parents, and the FBI took his DNA sample. He said he began investigating his origins years ago and found photos on the Internet that led him to believe he could be Stephen, reports CBS station WCBS-TV in New York.

Barnes said pictures of the missing boy's mother when she was a young adult resembled what he looked like at the same age.

In Iowa, Stephen's father, Jerry Damman, said the news was disappointing.

"It's too bad we had to go through all of this for actually nothing in the end," he told The Associated Press.

Barnes said he was born the same year the boy disappeared, but that he only saw his birth certificate once.

Barnes' father, Richard Barnes, has called the speculation "a bunch of foolishness." He said John Barnes was born in a Navy hospital in Pensacola, Fla., on Aug. 18, 1955.

Police in Nassau County, N.Y., said a Michigan man contacted their office in the past few months saying he believed he was the missing toddler."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.

What a bunch of hokey!

An Apology For Slavery Has Been Issued By Congress!

On behalf of my slave ancestors,I accept the apology for slavery that Congress has offered African-Americans.It may have taken almost two centuries,but better late than never!I'm not sure how that will rectify the mental ramifications that slavery has had on past,present(and probably future) generations of black Americans.

Restoring a sense of cultural & racial worth is still a goal for 21st century African-Americans.That's why so many blacks felt proud when Barack Obama won!Many felt that black people were finally being accepted into an elite society that had despised them for so long.

But,being proud of oneself is still a struggle for oh so many black folks.And that lack of self-pride that still lingers from the days of the slave master & the whip will not return because of an apology for slavery.What the apology does do is it acknowledges the wrongs that America has done to some of its people.It does not right that wrong,though!

Here's more from ajc:

"The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

"Today represents a milestone in our nation's efforts to remedy the ills of our past," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The resolution, passed by voice vote, was the work of Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, the only white lawmaker to represent a majority black district.

Cohen faces a formidable black challenger in a primary election next week.

Congress has issued apologies before: to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. In 2005, the Senate apologized for failing to pass anti-lynching laws.

Five states have issued apologies for slavery and Georgia has considered one, but past proposals in Congress have stalled, partly over concerns that an apology would lead to demands for reparations.

The Cohen resolution does not mention reparations. It does commit the House to rectifying "the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African-Americans under slavery and Jim Crow."

It says that Africans forced into slavery "were brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized and subjected to the indignity of being stripped of their names and heritage" and that black Americans today continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery, discrimination and segregation."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.