Summer Celebrations

                                    Statue sculpted by Thomas Ball to commemorate the Emmancipation Proclamation

I hope you all had a Happy Father's Day yesterday.  I am proud to live in a country where freedom and family are a cause for celebration.  I am not a perfect father but God gave me 3 wonderful daughters, their husbands and 4 perfect granddaughters.  They are great gifts.

Yesterday was also Juneteenth, a celebration for when the enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they were free... more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  News didn't spread as quickly then as it does now.  Union soldiers arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865 declaring to all that slavery was abolished.  The former slaves immediately began to celebrate with prayer, feasting, song and dance.  It is the longest running African American holiday.   The day dedicated to celebrating that freedom spread through out the states.  

Texas declared Juneteenth as a state holiday in 1980.  It  didn't become a federal holiday until 2021 in the United States.  

Let's all celebrate family and freedom with jubilant prayer, dancing, feasting and singing.

Moving forward,

Jeff Roach

www.brooketraining.com