On this day 250 years ago, a fearless band of American patriots stood their ground against the mightiest military power of the age at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Outmanned, outgunned, and underestimated, these ordinary men exemplified extraordinary courage and sent a thundering message to Britain and the entire world that the American people would never waver in their fight for freedom…
— A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America, June 17, 2025.
I’ve never celebrated the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, an anniversary that occurs on June 17 each year. The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the American Revolutionary War, but it wasn’t actually fought on Bunker Hill. The battle mainly took place on Breed’s Hill, in Charlestown, Massachusetts.
The well-trained, well-armed British forces won the battle, but suffered significant casualties, demonstrating that colonial forces could stand up to the British Army… which they continued to do, for the next eight years, until the British Army finally surrendered on September 3, 1783.
According to the proclamation posted to the White House website, this battle “sent a thundering message… that the American people would never waver in their fight for freedom.”
Liberty. Justice. Freedom. These are American values. At each regular meeting of the Pagosa Springs Town Council, and at each regular meeting of the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners, our elected leaders begin their official deliberations with a recitation of the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’…
“…one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Of course, we understand that in 1775, at the time of the Battle of Bunker Hill, about 500,000 people were living as slaves in the thirteen American colonies, representing about 20% of the total colonial population of roughly 2.5 million.
The enslaved population was heavily concentrated in the southern colonies, where tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations relied extensively on enslaved labor. Virginia, for example, had the largest enslaved population — around 200,000 people — which amounted to about 40% of the state’s total population.
The freedom for which the colonial forces were fighting on June 17, 1775, applied only to certain people: the immigrants from Europe.
If the American revolutionaries had lost their eight-year war and the colonies had remained part of the British Empire, it seems likely that the slaves in North America would have been freed in 1833, with the passage of the British law called the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.
But history tells a different story. The people living in slavery in the United States obtained their freedom — at least, theoretically — in 1865. In January 1865, the U.S. Congress proposed the 13th Amendment, for the national abolition of slavery. By June 1865, almost all enslaved persons had been freed by the victorious Union Army or by state abolition laws.
The 13th Amendment was finally ratified in December.
In particular, the slaves living in Texas were officially emancipated on June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas. Texas began celebrating ‘Juneteenth’ by proclamation in 1938, and by official legislation in 1979.
When I visited the White House website on June 19, 2025, I found news about Bunker Hill, and news about the military parade held in Washington DC on June 14, and news about One Big, Beautiful Bill that will benefit all 50 states.
And many other news items as well.
But I didn’t find anything about the federal holiday called ‘Juneteenth’, established in 2021 to celebrate the freedom — at least, the theoretical freedom — of American slaves.
Today is June 19. Juneteenth. A federal holiday.
I’m using the term “theoretical” in reference to the term “freedom” because the slaves who were emancipated by the Thirteenth Amendment did not acquire freedom in the same sense that White American colonists did in 1783. The slaves were only “technically” free. They had no formal education. They had no bank accounts. They were not registered to vote. In many cases, they did not own property — homes, land, livestock, tools — so most became sharecroppers or wage slaves to Southern landowners and landlords.
And of course, almost all of them were Black. That is to say, they were easily identifiable — by the dominant White population — as people who, based entirely upon their skin color, did not deserve to fully enjoy liberty and justice.
Fast forward 100 years, to 1965.
The three ‘Selma to Montgomery’ marches were 54-mile-long protest marches from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. From Wikipedia:
The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression; they were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement.
Following the Civil War and in clear violation of the 14th Amendment, Southern state legislatures passed and maintained a series of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised millions of Blacks across the South. The federal government in the 1960s took steps to ensure that Blacks could enjoy the same freedoms and rights as White Americans. Those efforts were only partially successful.
Fast forward 70 years more.
In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday, when the 117th U.S. Congress enacted the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, and President Joe Biden signed the bill into law.
Officially, America now celebrates two ‘Independence Days’.
July 4th, celebrating liberty and justice for the European colonists, and June 19, celebrating liberty and justice for the African Americans who were once enslaved by the European colonists.
Liberty. Justice. Freedom. I have always believed these were American values.
Our President, Donald Trump, claims — on the White House website — to represent “all Americans”.
Unfortunately, he’s obviously a racist.