By J.D. Crowe,The Associated Press

“In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.” — Frederick Douglass

“Shoot down the Confederacy and up- hold the flag; the American flag.” Frederick Douglass

Happy Juneteenth, y’all. This holiday – which recognizes the end of slavery – has been a long time coming. But it’s only temporary in Alabama.

I’d like to testify my support for the Dothan Eagle editorial calling for the celebration of Juneteenth by getting rid of Alabama’s Confederate holidays. What a splendid idea.

Alabama celebrates three Confederate-related state holidays: Confederate Memorial Day in April, the birthday of Confederate President

Jefferson Davis in June, and the joint holiday of Robert E. Lee Day and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January.

Let’s start by doing away with the most embarrassing of the three – the joint holiday of Robert E. Lee and Mar- tin Luther King. Must Alabama always provide a Confederate loser option for those unwilling to recognize a Black civil rights icon?

Let’s put Robert E. Lee out to pasture and let MLK have his own day, for crying out loud.

And let’s make Juneteenth a permanent state holiday.

From the Al.com/Dothan Eagle post: Juneteenth has long been recognized informally to celebrate the end of slavery, and was authorized as a federal holiday last year. Several states and many municipalities have established Juneteenth as a holiday.

However, Alabama’s Juneteenth holiday is an anomaly, as the authorization is temporary, established by guber- natorial proclamation. To become a permanent state holiday, legislative action is necessary.

Alabama lawmakers must initiate and pass this authorization at its first opportunity. While Juneteenth has long been a day of celebration for African-American Alabamians, the end of slavery in the United States stands as a victory for humanity, and as such should be celebrated by every American and every Alabamian.

Let’s celebrate the end of slavery with a few quotes from slave, statesman and abolitionist Frederick Douglass:

“Shoot down the Confederacy and uphold the flag; the American flag.”

“Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffold- ing to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed.”

“Men do not love those who remind them of their sins.”

“They who study man-kind with a whip in their hands will always go wrong.”

“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.”

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