Since it is Juneteenth, I will share a lil something... My ancestors were slaves in Texas & were freed on June 19, 1865. They came together to meet with other ex-slaves & formed the Limestone County 19th of June Organization. They bought 30 acres of land on Lake Mexia.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful part of your family history.
What a proud history! Happy Juneteenth means a whole lot more to you than a day off! Love this.
What a wonderful piece of history to share. Thank you!
Thank you for this gift of your personal history. 🙏
WOW!
Wow! Yay freedom for everyone! We have friends everywhere.
Amazing artifacts! Living history. Thanks for sharing.
jonathancoleman64.medium.com/letter-to-th...
Thank you for sharing. Amazing.
That's amazing and thank you for sharing it!!
Your ancestors were heroes! In shedding the racism I was brought up with, I learned that Black people are the backbone of America then and now. We do not deserve Black people. Thank you, and happy Juneteenth!
Thank you for sharing! I appreciate learning about history with a special connection to your family's ancestors. The documents you have add to the dignitaries significance of your family's history to Juneteenth
That is so cool
What a great family history
Thank you for sharing your family’s history. Everyone should know how they got here, and why they are here. Our ancestors are the answers to the questions we desperately seek.
They get that mule too tho?
💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖
Black history is American history. A BIG PART of American history. Why are they so afraid of that?
Maybe people want to forget tge pain and suffering of their family or hide tye shame I'd what happened. I'm positive the personal and stories of slavery and freedom would shock us all. We really need to know. What is happening now with Trump's deportations will go down in history as atrocities.
Guilt
Wow, how great is that! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing your personal history and for telling us your ancestors story. How did you get all of this information? Have you thought of writing a book, if even just for your family? Thanks for your story and history lesson at the same time. America needs to hear your story.
And the idiot, elected by idiots, posted this today, of all days
Cheetolini is just pissed because Biden is the one that enacted Juneteenth as a federal paid holiday. Everything that mobster-in-chief does is based on getting even. He completely gutted funding to Harvard when is son, Baron wasn't accepted. Guess who did graduate from Harvard? Malia Obama
The only people that didn't want holidays are the rich business owners that want working people and not paid time off.
Wasn't a mistake. Trump translated: "Black folks shouldn't have a federal holiday."
That is exactly what he means.
Exactly!
This is great - how fabulous to know that your family had such courage and determination! I’m sure they would be immensely proud of you, and of their other descendants. May you all be blessed with health, happiness, freedom and strength, on Juneteenth and every day to come.
Thanks for sharing❣️
❤️🫂❤️
Apropos of nothing, my dad (b. 1934) was born in Mexia and lived there for the first few years of his life
Amazing family history! Thank you so much for sharing your family history with us all on this day! We are grateful for your family!
Thankyou for sharing . I didn’t really understand Juneteenth I apologize for not studying up on it.
👍💙🙏💙👍
This is beautiful to read. Also surprising to see the name Zeno as it's my family's surname.
Thank you. That's real history. Your ancestors are real American heroes.
awesome!!
Thanks for sharing.
Just going to throw this out there... the Irish were treated far worse and don't need their own separate day.
Thanks for posting the records! I have so much family from those parts. Lots of history that's not taught by the schools. And for those who don't know it's "Mexia" pronounced muh-HAY-uh not MEX-ee-uh 🤪
🩷 Thank you for sharing part of your forebears’ story.
This is the most beautiful thing I have read today. Thank you for sharing your family’s story.
Thank you for sharing this! I used to teach American History but for me Geneolgy has filled in all the blanks and brings it to life.
This is amazing. So glad you shared this.
“As time passed the organization as well as the attendance grew, so two other days were addea to the attraction, and now the 17th, 18th and 19th days of June are celebrated annually.” What a great slice of Black history and American history. Thanks for sharing your “lil something”.
Don't let tRUMP and the MAGAts eradicate your history!!
Yes
Positive out of negative. A true tradition of resilience and survival by the marginalized. Be proud of your family 💪🏻💯
This is the history we must elevate to the surface. This is awsome. Thank you for sharing.
👍🏼❤️
Amazing! Wonderful!
What a great piece of family history. The fact that you have this documentation is not just impressive, but moving. How proud they'd be to know what a difference they made ❤️
Wonderful stuff! Thanks for sharing.
Wow, thank you for sharing. There is so much we were never taught in school.
Thank you for sharing your family's triumph.♥️
Thank you, KD.
Thank you for sharing & keeping your family's very important story alive. Your history should never be erased💙
I suppose news traveled pretty slow back then but maybe they didn't want it known yet?
So Warren Connor Sr., who sold the 10 acres of land to the Board of Directors, also sat on the Board. How interesting!
Or is that Jr
Possible. My question though, is this: Was Connor white?
Nope. Formerly enslaved.
Thank you for sharing. That’s an amazing and inspiring story!
This is so interesting. Thank you for sharing!
Very cool! A part of history!
🥰
Awesome! Thanks for sharing! We need more stories from the original working class in America. African Slaves, built America!
So who built America before Africans sold captured people as slaves to Europeans & who introduced them to the new world? And remind me which country saved the world from the actual NAZIS?!
🙏🏽
You have a legacy to be proud of.
Is it polite for white people to ask about your heritage?
Thanks 4 sharing. You are a good kind soul. Your ancestors must be really proud. I am. 🙏❤️💯
You must be proud of your awesome heritage. Truly impressive.
We need a table top book of stories like yours. That’s important history right there. Thank you for gifting us with it!
Great story! Bravo !
😍
A powerful lineage . Thank you for sharing this with us. 💜
I do hope they were able to hold onto their land during Jim Crow. Could you imagine the excitement of being free, of owning land, only to experience the disappointment of having the South essentially revive slavery during Jim Crow.
It must have, since the 1967 event was at the same place :)
Good eye, and good news!
This is so cool. What an inspiration and a great place in central Texas! Thank you so much for sharing.
Wow. Really cool that you know that history.
Where is Lake Mexia?
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So interesting! Thanks for sharing!
A relative of my wife died in a Confederate POW camp. After, slavery was abolished, the freed slaves dug the bodies up and gave them a proper burial in individual graves. Then the slaves made a parade with flowers to the new cemetery. This was credited as the idea for Memorial Day.There is a plaque.
Thank you for sharing!
This is very cool. Thanks for sharing.
Though my ancestor was a signer to The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation, he was in fact a slave owner. I am profusely and extremely sorry about that. I’m very sorry that this nation refuses to, at the very least, pay a financial penalty for these atrocities.
I wish there was a place an open museum where people who hold important information about their family coming to America, being a slave, their family and and their story could be collectively and personality recorded.
Congratulations!
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your family story.. part of the story of America
❤️
Great - it was a Texas holiday for a long time - the rest of the slaves were freed on Jan 1 - well, except those held by the Indians - the government didn’t get all those freed for nearly 10 years as the Indians wouldn’t release them without a fight
Wow, your ancestors created history! All should know.
Some of my ancestors were slaves in Mississippi. My Great Great Grandfather managed to amass some 972 acres which was passed down through the family (intact) for almost 100 years. In the past 30 years surviving cousins and siblings have disgustingly sold off all but about 60 acres.
How sad but maybe they needed the money?
Very much appreciate you sharing some personal history. When I went to public school in Houston, there was no mention of it in American History class (I lived in a white suburb—I’m sure it got acknowledged in H.I.S.D. schools in historically black and perhaps newly diverse neighborhoods. 1/2
Good
2/2 only reason I learned about it is because dad took us to Hermann to celebrate the day, and to hear bluesman Juke Boy Bonner perform (back in ‘76).
Remembering the Comanche Three
What an incredible story. Thank you so much for sharing.
Not a "Horatio Alger story" but great to hear of folks being resilient when it seems so much is against success
That's a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing.
Nice
Thank you for sharing that. I was really hoping to see at least one story like this today.
Thank you for sharing this. Amazing.
thanks for sharing
Happy JUNETEENTH!
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Then let’s fight to eliminate Trump
This is awesome
Thank you ‼️☮️🔆♥️
Wow. Crazy world.
Awesome post 💥. Thank you for sharing 🥰
Cool beans!
I learned about Juneteeth from the elder black residents of a very segregated city in central Atlantic coastal Florida. My year-round residency allowed a deeper connection with the OG keepers of what's what and true in history. The KKK was strong & hidden just out of view but very heavy in the air.
🩷🩵💙
What a great personal history. May I ask how your community evolved? Do the ancestors of those original stakeholders still lead the community, or has it become like so many other origin stories? Still, it is great that you have those documents for yourself, your place in history.
Wow. That’s awesome!
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for sharing this great history.
Fascinating! You must be proud. Thank you for sharing this story.
Thank you for sharing
👊🏾
💙💙💙💙💙💙
✊🏾❤️🙌🏾
A wonderful family heritage story, thank you for sharing.
All good things to you and yours on this Juneteenth. We still have a long way to go. Thank you for sharing your history.
Thanks for sharing. That's fantastic.
Thanks for that.
God Bless You! I’m so glad YOU are here and Juneteenth is to be celebrated.
Awesome story. Thank you for sharing
Happy Juneteenth and thanks for a wonderful story!
Happy Juneteenth.
💕
Thank you for sharing your family and Texas history with us.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for sharing 😊✌️
Wow. Brave and smart ancestors. Thankful you shared this.
Thank you for sharing their story.
Fascinating documents. Thanks for keeping the history and sharing with us.
Most people agree that slavery was one of the worst atrocities in our U.S. history. What I don’t understand is how Trump and the Republican Party can claim to agree with that, yet still express outrage over our country celebrating the end of slavery—one of the darkest chapters in America’s past.
And they really, really don't want people to know/teach that TX was explicitly founded on the principle of "All men are NOT created equal, slavery forever!"
The ethnic cleansing and near genocide of the indigenous population was also fairly bad.
Simple: they're lying. If you ask the right questions, and they're honest, you'll hear all about how the civil war was about state rights and not slavery. You might even hear the incredibly absurd claim that slaves were a part of the family and had it good.
We knew instantly what they were all about with this MAGA bullsh!t.
Thank you for posting..
They don’t think, they don’t make mental and emotional connections and then draw conclusions. Anything that gets in the way of their own self interest and their own nurtured hate is just dismissed from the equation. When a majority is like that a society has fascism. Liberal democracy is dead
White conservatives are terrified of their supremacy being challenged, and thus are easily conned by a grifter selling snake oil. Nothing to be confused by, it's the oldest con in the world.
Because Trump and the GOP really don't care about real history. Slavery, Japanese internment camps... If you don't talk about it or teach it or even allow books about it, it must not have happened
It's called caucasity beloved 🤷🏾
Have those scumbags repealed Juneteenth as a federal holiday (not sure whether that’s the right terminology)? Genuinely asking, not pushing back on your statement, as I’d be v. surprised if they haven’t in one of those dumb sharpie EOs.
Prison labor continues the tradition. And I doubt they actually agree.
They identify with their ancestors a bit too much, methinks. Anything that makes them look bad has to be swept under the rug and quietly forgotten.
Thanks for sharing this.
Great piece of history - I mean…sad history but great it’s being remembered & honored. Fascinating documents indeed! What a legacy to be part of!
1865 160 years ago Reparations? 160 years later?
I asked the rabbi, how late is too late to make reparations? 70 years? and he replied, “truly I say unto you, that even 70 times 70 years is not too late…”
So your solution is just … never, then?
There's nothing to prove. You don't pay a debt bc someone "deserves it." You pay a debt bc it's owed. And this isn't just about slavery. There was also Jim Crow, redlining, racist policing to fill prisons for work gangs, and so much more. We owe reparations to the descendants of slavery, period
Thanks for sharing❗️💜💜💜
Thanks for sharing your story. Happy Juneteenth!
My daughter's biological family founded the Blackberry Community and Anderson, Texas, South side, right after the Civil War. I helped them get paperwork together for historical designation.
Paula's family is Ruckett & helped found that community and that church which has since been taken over by an outsider who isn't related to anyone there. I have the church paperwork showing who owns it, etc , somewhere in my home
I worked with Paula Taylor's family most recently on the church issue before someone swooped in & stole the church on the corner. I love that area. I went with Paula & her family to the SO; Sowell is useless
Thank you so much for posting this memorabilia. It’s fascinating and warms my heart. May we never forget.
Thanks for sharing!
thank you amazing piece of history
Cool!
Amazing — thank you so much for sharing this!
Thank you for sharing this. Wow!
The Making of America!
Thanks for posting
Thank you for sharing some of your family history👏🏻
Thank you for the share and download. 💐
Damn Mines hidden Cool info I lived in San Antonio for a bit!
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As I read this, I am realizing that slavery was finally abolished ONLY 100 YEARS BEFORE I WAS BORN! I have never stopped to relate to the timeframe. It is beyond belief that my great-grandmother was born, although in another country, at the same time slavery existed in this country! How eye opening!
Happy Juneteenth!
Was your family history and stories passed down, or did you do research? I’m curious how easy or difficult it is for descendants of slaves to find this info.
Stories passed down. I have family who told us about it constantly but Facebook and the sharing the old photos/documents is where it really put everything together
That’s really cool.
That’s fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing with all of us!
There's an anthropologist on Instagram who focuses his research on identifying slave plots in cemeteries in Virginia. I think local libraries and the Library of Congress are also good resources. In addition, there's a lot of incredible researchers at universities who would gladly help folks.
Amazing, also checkout Uncle Tom's Cabin. A Historic Site, also known as the Josiah Henson Museum of African-Canadian History, is located in Dresden, Ontario, Canada. About 45 mins from Port Huron, and 1.5 hrs from Detroit. Worth the drive for the family. www.heritagetrust.on.ca/properties/j...
Thank you for sharing. I will share on behalf of your family and loved ones. Hoping many others will share their story, As well as this one.
Wow...your family has such a rich history! Thank you for sharing on this special day.
Happy June teeth from your friends in Canada.
Wow! Awesome✌🏼
This is cool AF.
Squee!
God Bless. May America heal from its own hate.
My family was from Limestone county. I love to learn this about your family. Our family was in Kosse right down the road.
Thanks for the post. I enjoy reading about history. True, unvarnished history.
This is great history .
👊🏽💪🏾🥰🇦🇺
What a cool history!
Clarksville TX, is now a Austin neighborhood- was a post Civil War freedom town.
Thank you for sharing and helping us learn more about this important part of history.
White people owe the Indian's and the Black slaves they brought to this country and make sure their chikdren and grandchildren know this history about there country. It's definitely not bring taught in school. What happened to immigrants, slaves and Indians matter and it is the history of America.
The facts.
I want the rest of this story! Please continue.
PROUD!✊
this information would make a great foundation of a book or movie. THIS is history I want to know about. People with a simple mission and doing what is needed. Perhaps these days we take this for granted, but buying all that land and preserving it all these years is a monument to them
I agree, or even a YouTube video of visiting the area, viewing the cabins, plantations and fields and researching the records.
I am so very much older than you and still very angry that no one taught us about this. It is so shameful for me to admit I knew nothing about this until recently. Thank you for sharing some additional history.
That is a great piece of history. Thanks for sharing. Our real Independence Day. 💙
I'm happy for you and your family and your neighbors!
I'm from this area and have two Medlocks living in my house right now!
That’s super cool for you to have that information!
I think I want to talk to you
Thank you for sharing💗
Slavery in America was "abolished" in 1863, 162 years is three sets of 54. Your great-grandparents would know the truth. "I don't own any slaves!" We have the receipts... if you want the truth, ask your family. If they're dodgy, you have your answer.
Also, if my great-great grandparents (in U.S. and Europe) bought cigarettes or cotton shirt derived from forced work of enslaved Black Americans, and paid less for those items, they SUPPORTED slavery. Full stop. No excuses accepted.
Hell, anything. Rice. Huge industry for South Carolina w/ "free" labor. The ROI crashed post-Civil War. Visit to Savannah few years back, I heard older white lady, on tour of former rice plantation, say, "Things were so much simpler back then." Fhk that.
from a former southerner, next time you hear that, ask them why it was simpler. they always clam up even if you offer 'no social media to show us how everyone else is trying to present that their lives are better?' get aggressive, make them feel so guilty they can't hide it. their language is shame
i have an intimidating stare, i just hit em with "mmhm?" and "yea? is that right?" and ur absolutely right, they have nothing. its disgusting. if you cant bash slavers, even if they're your blood, you're just as bad, because you'd let it happen today. and it does. across the whole planet.
Also: Philly raised, I *know* North was/is as racist as South. MLK 1966 quote: “The people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate." Truth. My mother to me, age 16, on bringing Black girl home as date: "I will fucking kill you."
Philly, Newark, New York, Boston. All the way up and down the north.
Yes. And all that "saved" money from not paying for labor led to funding roads, bridges, buildings, so much advancement in U.S. The pretty houses in Savannah, Charleston, Philly, etc., were funded with blood money. Not even counting genocide of Ingenious peoples. So many ignore this.
all money is blood money
I still want more…
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This is exactly why there was so much Northern opposition to fighting the Civil War to abolish slavery. New England mill owners spun all that cotton. They all wanted the less expensive domestic goods.
My war-heavy Mackay ancestors were mercenaries for Black Watch in Scotland, and sold their "talents" to highest bidder. During U.S. Civil War, the Confederacy was that bidder. I fully accept my family has stain of enslaving others in our history.
My grandfather was an Irish Republican in Ulster who fled the English police and made it to America in 1900. No one is sure what he did but likely some sort of IRA terror that resulted in the death of some Protestant now long forgotten. The church smuggled him out, to Philly. He hated the klan tho
And I know that because my paternal grandfather was a Delaware Klansman in the 1920s. He worked for the PRR and was fired when he was outed as KKK. The patrician Pennsylvania RR did not tolerate that. The women all had to go to work. My Irish grandfather didn’t think much of southron politics.
Wonderful
💙💙💙💙
That's very interesting!
Really cool.
Thank you for sharing! ❤️
That's awesome!
🙏💛♥️💚
Thank you for sharing and putting a human face to the holiday. 1865 is only 104 years before I was born, and it's important to be reminded that this is not distant history.
My grandmother lived to 104 years old. The stories she told me, I thank God recorded. I had no idea how important they would become.
Exactly! It was 84 years - one life span, really, before I was born.
Couldn't agree more with your sentiments. We often think of history as distant, when in fact it is closer to us than we think, freedom and equality are never taken for granted, they need to be remembered and continue to be defended.
Very cool. I hope this land is still in your family in some way. ❤️
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Thank you for sharing JD.
