Again, Juneteenth

On this day, exactly one year ago, I posted this on Facebook.

 

“And so a farewell toast to Europe with my favorite Austrian beer. Six memorable weeks in the Dordognes, Paris, London, Oxford, the Cotswolds, Vienna, Salzburg, Linz and now the Munich Airport. A grand pleasure to meet old friends and make new ones, to bike, hike and wander and also to teach, to feel touched by the exquisite aesthetics of these European cities, the beautiful countryside, the uplift of art and architecture and cultivated cuisine, the kindness of strangers and shared concern with just about everyone I met about the unravelling of the world and the shared commitment to help stitch it back together. 

 

Tomorrow it’s off to Ghana and a different kind of uplift from extraordinary music, dance and song and the exuberant welcomes the Orff Afrique students always feel. On this Juneteenth day, the Civil War is raging again back home, but I’m here to report that healing forces are everywhere. A toast to what has been and to what will come.”

 

And here I am again on the exact same day one year later, bidding farewell to a marvelous four weeks in London, the Yorkshire Dales, the Dolomites, now on the way to my Jazz Course in New Orleans and “a different kind of uplift from extraordinary music, dance and song.” The Civil War still raging as before, if not more so, and the healing forces still at work trying to contain and ultimately oust the traitors to democracy, intelligence and just plain human decency. Amidst all the beauty that walked and rode with me through each day here in Europe, that lurking shadow is never far away. 

 

So on this Juneteenth day commemorating the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War in 1865 (over 160 years ago!), let’s re-commit to actually ending the Civil War. To emancipate our enslavement to injustice, immorality, ignorance, greed and hatred. To walk together on this great, green earth in awe of its natural beauty and our own natural beauty, toasting to friends with an end-of-a-delicious-meal limoncello gifted by a smiling waiter.