U.S. History

125,248

November 25, 2022

With a core group of 12 researchers and 100 volunteers undertaking thousands of hours of work, the Ireichō was born: it is a massive book listing the names of the 125,284 Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. The book is currently on display at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo.

~ Line Sidonie Talla Mafotsing from, https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ireicho-japanese-american-internment-names

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It happened, regardless where you stand on the United States’ treatment of persons of Japanese heritage. I honestly cannot recall if it was presented as part of my U.S. history in primary education. If it was, then I forgot. I would prefer that—as a nation—we understand our history and, as much as possible, learn from it.

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Juneteenth

June 19, 2018

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION:

By the President of the United States of America:

A PROCLAMATION

Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation
was issued by the President of the United States, containing,
among other things, the following, to wit:

“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as
slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall
be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive
government of the United States, including the military and naval
authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such
persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any
of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

“That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid,
by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any,
in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in
rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State
or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith
represented in the Congress of the United States by members
chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified
voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the
absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive
evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then
in rebellion against the United States.”

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief
of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed
rebellion against the authority and government of the United States,
and as a fit and necessary war measure for supressing said
rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in
accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the
full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned,
order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the
people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against
the United States the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard,
Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension,
Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans,
including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the
forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the
counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York,
Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and
Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left
precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do
order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said
designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall
be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States,
including the military and naval authorities thereof, will
recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to
abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and
I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor
faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons of
suitable condition will be received into the armed service of
the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and
other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice,
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke
the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor
of Almighty God.

~ Abraham Lincoln from, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth

Flag Day 2013

June 14, 2013

Today is Flag Day in the United States.

National Flag Day commemorates Congress’s adoption on June 14, 1777 of the Stars and Stripes as the flag of the United States. Although not officially a federal holiday, Pennsylvania has declared it an official state holiday. (Huzzah Pennsylvania!)

HISTORY

US_Flag_Day_poster_1917

June 14th, 1885 – Bernard J. Cigrand, a then 19 year old grade school teacher at Stony Hill School, placed a 10 inch, 38 star flag in a bottle on his desk and assigned essays on the flag and its significance. He went on to work for decades spreading recognition of June 14th as a nation day of remembrance and observation of the Stars and Stripes. (See also, House Resolution 622.)

May 30, 1916 – President Wilson issued Presidential proclamation 1335, calling for a nation wide observance of Flag Day on June 14th:


Proclamation 1335 – Flag Day
May 30, 1916

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

My Fellow Countrymen:

Many circumstances have recently conspired to turn our thoughts to a critical examination of the conditions of our national life, of the influences which have seemed to threaten to divide us in interest and sympathy, of forces within and forces without that seemed likely to draw us away from the happy traditions of united purpose and action of which we have been so proud, It has therefore seemed to me fitting that I should call your attention to the approach of the anniversary of the day upon which the flag of the United States was adopted by the Congress as the emblem of the Union, and to suggest to you that it should this year and in the years to come be given special significance as a day of renewal and reminder, a day upon which we should direct our minds with a special desire of renewal to thoughts of the ideals and principles of which we have sought to make our great Government the embodiment.

I therefore suggest and request that throughout the nation and if possible in every community the fourteenth day of June be observed as FLAG DAY with special patriotic exercises, at which means shall be taken to give significant expression to our thoughtful love of America, our comprehension of the great mission of liberty and justice to which we have devoted ourselves as a people, our pride in the history and our enthusiasm for the political programme of the nation, our determination to make it greater and purer with each generation, and our resolution to demonstrate to all the world its, vital union in sentiment and purpose, accepting only those as true compatriots who feel as we do the compulsion of this supreme allegiance. Let us on that day rededicate ourselves to the nation, “one and inseparable” from which every thought that is not worthy of our fathers’ first vows in independence, liberty, and right shall be excluded and in which we shall stand with united hearts, for an America which no man can corrupt, no influence draw away from its ideals, no force divide against itself,-a nation signally distinguished among all the nations of mankind for its clear, individual conception alike of its duties and its privileges, its obligations and its rights.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this thirtieth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and sixteen, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fortieth.

1949 – In the summer session of the 1949 Congress, the House and the Senate agreed to H.J. Res. 170, a joint resolution officially recognizing June 14 of each year as Flag Day, and authorizing and requesting the president to issue an annual proclamation informing the American people of the occasion.

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