Daily Archives: June 20, 2022

Juneteenth celebrates the movement that ended chattel slavery in the U.S. in which African Americans played a central role.

Great leaders Frederick Douglas, Charlotte Forten Grimk, Sojourner Truth along with others initiated and built a united, Black and white struggle that propelled human society forward, ending chattel slavery in the U.S. over the course of centuries of protracted struggle.

Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which declared that 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, ended slavery in the rebellious states.

Almost three years later, on December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

Texas ignored the Emancipation Proclamation until June 19, 1865, when U.S. Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order 3, freeing the slaves in Texas, the last state with institutionalized chattel slavery.

Juneteenth arose from the celebrations of the enslaved Black people in Texas upon winning their freedom.

The day was recognized as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.

Texass attempt to prevent emancipation signaled the beginning of the states rights strategy to preserve white supremacy. It became the racist rallying cry during the civil rights movements and continues to be used to advocate for anti-human and anti-worker policies. States rights is also used to oppose policies that have broad, national democratic support but, due to the limits of bourgeois democracy, gerrymandering, and other distortions of democracy, must be enacted at the federal rather than the state level. The efforts by states to restrict womens access to health care, including abortion services, is a present-day example of using states rights to undermine democracy.

The Thirteenth Amendment left enslavement legal as punishment for a crime. It underpins the school-to-prison pipeline that literally enslaves more than 2 million people in the U.S. today, denying recognition of their human dignity and taking no substantial responsibility for protecting the health and well-being of those enslaved and incarcerated. The Amendment must be modified to remove the slavery-for-crime clause.

The brutal exploitation of chattel slaves that ended in 1865 was transformed into wage slavery, where humans are forced to sell their labor for subsistence or less. While the wage slave is not owned under the law, the capitalists control over the workers lives is real. Wage slavery encompasses all peoples but is most heinous for Black folks who experience super exploitation and the concurrent police violence echoing the KKK and others from the Reconstruction era.

While we celebrate the end of chattel slavery on June 19th, we also celebrate on June 18th the ongoing struggle demonstrated by the Poor Peoples Campaign and Call for a Moral Revival, demanding that the needs of the poor and workers be addressed.

As the Poor Peoples Campaign proclaimed: There were 140 million people who were poor or one emergency away from economic ruin before the pandemic. Since March 2020, while hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions are on the edge of hunger and eviction, and still without health care or living wages, billionaire wealth has grown by over $2 trillion.

We celebrate that the slave rebellions of the pre-Emancipation days continue today in the indomitable spirit of Black people, in union with all workers globally standing against exploitation, in demanding equality and a society that meets the needs of the masses of humanity.

The obscene maldistribution of wealth today, where individuals have more than entire countries, proves the centrality of capitalist exploitation and wage enslavement in our economy and society. Billionaires dont deserve their wealth; they steal it by privatizing the social profits of workers labor.

Workers of all colors and ethnicities continue to unite and fight for their lives, for their dignity, and for an end to capitalist exploitation and wage slavery. Every day reveals the fierce struggle to minimize or overthrow wage slavery, including recent victories by Amazon Labor Union workers, Starbucks workers, and others, and the work of the Communist Party USA.

This unity in struggle is the foundation for celebration today, along with joy in recognizing the huge victory by Black and white people in ending chattel slavery.

Juneteenth is celebrated with cookouts, family and community gatherings, music, and dance. Its a time to recommit to the struggles of the enslaved elders of the Black community, elders that were still alive within the lifetime of some today.

The struggle for freedom includes demanding an end to capitalist exploitation, building strong unions, winning community control of the police and ending police murders of Black people, and ending the prison industrial complex. It means moving funding from the military to community needs and protecting the environment. Only united action can move these struggles forward.

Celebrate, but struggle onwards to completely end exploitation and slavery in the United States. Join the Communist Party USA (cpusa.org/join-us) to help in this struggle today.

Image: Raise Up (Twitter).

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Juneteenth: Celebration and ongoing struggle Communist Party USA - Communist Party USA

In an 1898 speech honoring the memory of Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington told of a former enslaved person who described his life since emancipation by saying, Is got my second freedom.

His first freedom, Washington explained, had come with the end of chattel slavery. His second freedom the promise of relief from the peonage that followed emancipation came with a cost. It would take 20 years of severe struggle to get out of debt, pay for his 50 acres of land, build a home, and educate his children. But his was a rare story of success.

Far too many Americans are still searching for their second freedom. The nations four million enslaved people learned quickly that physical freedom did not mean equal access to economic opportunity. The law can abolish servitude, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America in 1835, but only God can obliterate its traces.

On June 19, 1865, the last enslaved Americans and their captors became no longer enslaver and enslaved but employer and worker. With limited job choices, thousands began working for the single largest post-slavery employer of African Americans: the Pullman Palace Car Co.

READ MORE: Intersections of Injustice | Philadelphia shootings surge in 2021, in communities historically affected by poverty, blight and systemic racism

In the 1860s, the engineer George M. Pullman designed a wildly popular sleeper railroad car that bore his name. When he went looking for workers for the rail line, he sought attentive servants who could cater to the whims of his well-heeled travelers, work under terrible conditions, and offer few complaints.

Underpaid, overworked, and forced to endure constant racism, Pullman porters were expected to work 400 hours a month. Pullman knew the workers would come cheap, and he paid them next to nothing, said the historian Larry Tye, the author of Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class.

Lincoln freed the slaves, went an oft-told joke of the day, and the Pullman Co. hired them. Coincidentally, it was Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincolns son, who became the president of Pullman cars in 1897, and who helped the company out of bankruptcy by cutting porters wages to nearly starvation levels, which forced them to live off tips.

After the creation of the first predominantly Black labor union and waves of intense negotiations with the Pullman Co., conditions had improved for porters by the late 1930s.

In the decades that followed, other efforts were made to improve the work lives of poor Black people. In the 1950s, leaders of the civil rights movement would draw upon the organizing tactics used by the Pullman porters in their efforts to bring an end to legalized segregation.

In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on President John F. Kennedy to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to free all Negroes from second class citizenship. After President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which created the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to eliminate discrimination, the agency was deluged with cases, two-thirds of which came from the South, most of them about racial discrimination.

Still, the long, bleak history of marginal jobs for African Americans has kept the Black unemployment rate consistently twice that of the white rate. This means many of the descendants of enslaved people still havent found a secure economic footing in our society, making it the most significant unfinished task of the Emancipation Proclamation. A 2020 report from Citi estimated that had the Black-white equity gap closed two decades ago, it would have benefited the economy by $16 trillion.

READ MORE: Its no easier for Black Philadelphians to become homeowners now than it was 30 years ago

Before he was assassinated in 1968, King was planning a campaign on behalf of the poor in Washington, D.C., where he would construct a shanty town for 2,000 people seeking economic justice, including jobs that paid a living wage. The campaign went on despite Kings death, and on Juneteenth that year, an additional 50,000 people flooded into Washington, D.C., for National Solidarity Day and to support the campaigns efforts.

We will place the problems of the poor at the seat of government of the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind, King wrote in a magazine essay that was published not long after his assassination. If the power refuses to acknowledge its debt to the poor, it will have failed to live up to its promise to insure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to its citizens. If this society fails, I fear that we will learn very shortly that racism is a sickness unto death.

Over the past few years, Ive seen many advocates grow weary, burn out, and despair over the amount of unfinished work. Juneteenth was developed from the wisdom of former enslaved people who understood how to handle adversity. June 19 is a day to remember the successes. Like how against all odds, the Pullman porters became a significant force whose quiet innovative activism help give birth to the modern civil rights movement. It is a day for celebrating, despite imperfect outcomes, like an emancipation notice that comes two years late. And it demands we rededicate ourselves to securing for all Americans their second freedom.

Chad Dion Lassiter is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. He was honored as the 2021 Social Worker of the Year by the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

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The unfinished business of Juneteenth - The Philadelphia Inquirer

(Editors note: This is part of Just Securitys Juneteenth Reading Recommendations.)

What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise.-Barbara Jordan.

On the occasion of Juneteenth, I recommend that you read the book Barbara Jordan: American Hero, by Mary Beth Rogers (2000). The life of Barbara Jordan (1936-1996) provides a lesson in quiet dignity, moral character, elegance, passion, and patriotism. Jordan was the first post-Reconstruction African-American elected to the Texas Senate and later went on to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first African-American woman from a southern state to do so. She exemplified resilience in the face of adversity, serving with grace and grit, and evincing a fighting spirit that we can draw on today. Her sonorous and honeyed voice called all of us to our higher selves. It is appropriate and fitting that we celebrate one of the greatest Americans and dedicated patriots that this country has ever known. Jordans family has roots in Juneteenth and Reconstruction, and these ingredients combined to produce an orator, advocate, and politician of historical importance. The life of Barbara Jordan, and her unyielding commitment to the Constitution and democracy, have deep roots in the emancipation of African-Americans from slavery.

The holiday of Juneteenth, as it is colloquially known, represents Galvestons most important historical moment. It stemmed from General Order No. 3, read on June 19, 1865, announcing that all enslaved people were free. The most important thing to know about Juneteenth is that it was late. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation on Sep. 22, 1862, yet the proclamation had little impact on Texans at the time it was originally issued, because there were not enough Union troops available in Texas to enforce it. Two and a half years later, in June of 1865, more than 2,000 federal soldiers of the 13th Army Corps arrived in Galveston. Major General Gordon Granger, Commanding Officer, District of Texas, delivered to Galveston General Order No. 3, informing Texans that all enslaved people were free.

When we consider the significance of Juneteenth, it is essential that we recognize that African-Americans, women and men, fought for the Union and against bondage before they were legally emancipated. African-Americans were not passive recipients of emancipation. Instead, they were active agents battling for their own liberation. Indeed, according to the National Archives:

By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war 30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions . . . Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 black commissioned officers. Black women, who could not formally join the Army, nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman, who scouted for the 2d South Carolina Volunteers.

Given the context of the long struggle for freedom, the official end of slavery tasted sweet to the liberated. On Jan. 2, 1866, a Galveston newspaper, Flakes Bulletin, reported that over 1,000 colored people of Galveston celebrated their emancipation from slavery with a procession, and by listening to an address of Gen. Gregory, Assistant Commissioner of Freedmen. The program included a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the singing of John Browns Body. Juneteenth was celebrated across the state, in Brenham, Marlin, Liberty, Bastrop, and elsewhere, with parades, picnics, speeches, and dancing. Ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished chattel slavery nationwide on Dec. 6, 1865, after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on Apr. 9, 1865. Unquestionably, news of their freedom came late to the African-American people of Texas, yet they celebrated. The end of the Civil War and the end of slavery were their victories too. Freedmen were not passive recipients of emancipation. They fought for it with their very lives.

During the period from 1865 to 1877 termed Reconstruction the nations laws and institutions were rewritten and reshaped in an effort to ensure that newly freed people could claim their basic rights under the Constitution. Reconstruction represented a heady period when newly freed people not only could exercise their basic rights and (for men) vote, but could also hold office. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 aimed to enforce the rights of Black men to vote. African-Americans voted in large numbers and held office at every level of government. Under Reconstruction, newly refashioned state governments established public schools, reunited families torn apart by slavery, and outlawed discrimination in transportation and education. During Reconstruction in Texas, notes the Texas Almanac, 52 African-American men served Texas either in the Legislature or as delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Just as Barbara Jordan fought for freedom and democracy in the 20th century, her family fought for freedom and democracy in the 19th century. Her great-grandfather was Edward A. Ed Patton, a Republican, who, according to the Texas State Historical Society, was born in Texas around 1859, came of age at the height of Reconstruction, and, as a teacher and farmer, won election to the 22nd Legislature of Texas in 1890, where he served as its only Black member and, among other positions, opposed the adoption of a poll tax.

Patton served a single term. By the late 19th century, the backlash to Reconstruction was in full swing, and new laws increasingly sought to curtail African-Americans efforts to exercise their rights to vote and to serve in public office. Indeed, following Reconstruction, the Texas Senate would not see another African-American member until Pattons great-granddaughter, Barbara Jordan, was elected in 1966.

Pattons great-granddaughter, Barbara Charline Jordan, was born on Feb. 21, 1936, in Houston, just a few miles from Galveston. Life in Texas when Jordan came of age was shaped by racism that, decades after Reconstruction, had never been expunged. She attended the segregated Phyllis Wheatley High School, which lacked adequate resources for students of color. She was a member of the inaugural class at Texas Southern University (TSU), a historically Black college created by the Texas Legislature to avoid integrating the University of Texas, where she excelled, leading the debate team to national renown and graduating magna cum laude. In 1959, she earned her law degree from Boston University in 1959 as one of only two African-American women in her class. She passed the Massachusetts and Texas bars and returned to Houston, where law firms refused to offer her a position because of her race, so she began her own practice at the kitchen table of her parents home.

Jordan was instrumental in the election of John F. Kennedy, securing unprecedented voter turnout in her area. In 1966, after two previous unsuccessful runs for a State House seat, she won the contest for a newly created State Senate seat, becoming the first African-American woman elected to the Texas State Senate and the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction. One of her greatest achievements in the Texas State Senate was leading the passage of legislation that gave millions of Texas farmworkers a living wage. In an honor remarkable for her era, she was elected President Pro Tempore of the Texas Senate in 1972.

In 1972, Jordan won election to U.S. Congress from Houstons 18th district, with a decisive 81% of the vote, becoming the first Black Texan in Congress and the first African-American woman from the South in the House. During her tenure from 1973-1979, she developed a reputation as a member of the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party who maintained good relationships with the conservative wing, and who also showed the pragmatic political instincts of her mentor, Lyndon B. Johnson.

Her opening statement to the U.S. Judiciary Committee on July 25, 1974, during President Nixons impeachment hearings, catapulted her onto the national platform. Despite noting in her remarks that women and African Americans were not included in the original draft of the Constitution, she offered a stirring defense of the document, stating, My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. Jordans 13-minute speech would be lauded as one of the most remarkable in American history. In 1976, she was the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. After an exceptional career in politics, she returned to her home state and taught at UTs Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

I met Barbara Jordan in person during her final years, when I was lucky enough to sit in on a seminar she taught at the LBJ School. She taught up until the end of her life. She believed in education, she believed in government, and she believed in serving the people. She also believed that, if you could get the best education, you could be a more effective individual. Citizens of the United States face numerous threats to democracy. Among the most worrying are efforts to implement voter suppression, which include interfering with electoral processes, concentrating power in the state executive, and reducing the powers of secretaries of state.

One of the lessons of Juneteenth is that we cannot wait for others to save us. We must engage, and actively fight for freedom. One of the lessons of Barbara Jordans life, as she stated in the Watergate Hearings nearly 20 years ago, is that we cannot sit here and be [idle] spectators to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. Instead, each of us must ask what active steps we can take to protect our Constitution. Former Dean of the LBJ School Max Sherman remembers Jordan as bold, and said that although she was incredible at compromise, when it came time to fight, she would fight.

On this Juneteenth, we can honor Jordan, and honor the tens of thousands of African-Americans in the Civil War who fought for their own liberation, and honor all those who, in the face of racism and injustice, chose public service. We too can choose to resist instead of standing by while we lose our rights. We must make sure our family and friends are registered to vote. Too many sacrifices were made to secure the franchise for women and people of color; we must never take our vote for granted. Jordans legacy demonstrates the power of our voices. On this, on the other independence day, let us continue to work towards an America as good as its promise.

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Remembering Barbara Jordan on the Occasion of Juneteenth - Just Security

Bang & Olufsen is a big name in the audio world, with its speakers, headphones and TVs and for good reason. The companys products usually test incredibly well when we get them in for review, and youll often see them featured in our best headphones, best true wireless and best speaker guides.

But, are its products sustainably made? As part of our core values that aim to highlight that global warming isnt a myth, Trusted Reviews sends a series of questions to every company about the efforts its making to help reduce the impact of its products on the planet.

Below is a breakdown of the answers we received from Bang & Olufsen on the measures its currently taking.

Answer: Yes. Bang & Olufsen is committed to minimising the adverse impact on the environment from the companys own operations and its supply chain, as well as being committed to continuously reducing the footprint of the companys products over their entire lifecycle. Resource efficiency, serviceability and high quality as standard have been an integral part of the companys daily operations for years, and Bang & Olufsen has been widely recognised from a functional, aesthetical and technological perspective for the design and long-lasting characteristics of its products. It is the companys ambition to push the boundaries even further by creating more sustainable products while also improving the user experience.

In September 2021, our Beosound Level became the first ever Cradle to Cradle Certified speaker in the consumer electronics industry. In addition, Bang & Olufsen is also among the first companies to receive the certification under the new Cradle to Cradle Certified Version 4.0 standard the most ambitious and actionable standard for designing and making products today that enable a sustainable tomorrow.

The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institutes Cradle to Cradle Certified Product Standard has long been regarded as the most trusted and advanced science-based standard for designing and manufacturing products that maximise health and wellbeing for people and the planet.

The fourth version of Cradle to Cradle Certified features new and enhanced requirements in all performance categories. This includes, but is not limited to, new frameworks for Product Circularity, more rigorous requirements in Clean Air & Climate Protection to promote urgent action to address climate change, as well as improved alignment of Material Health requirements with leading chemical regulations and other standards. The end goal of theCradle to Cradlephilosophy is to create a self-sustaining world where materials areseen as nutrients that circulate in closed loops and eventually help to design out waste.

Current environmental and circularity work on our products includes integration of the Cradle to Cradle standard into our product development process, exploration of the use of recycled materials, greater sourcing transparency, less impactful packaging, among others.

Currently, we do not currently have Environmental Product Declarations for our individual products.

B&Os Stakeholder and Sustainability Policy is available on our corporate website here.

Answer: Today, were not a carbon neutral company, but we have a stated ambition to work towards climate neutrality. Were working systematically to reduce the CO2 emissions of our operations by managing energy consumption and environmental impact in accordance with the principles of the ISO 14001 standard. So while were not yet a carbon neutral company, we have a roadmap to achieve this, and have two publicly stated targets for this financial year related to carbon reduction in our operations.

These are:

Answer: Yes. We dont have accreditation to validate this; however, all salaries start ahead of the London minimum wage, regardless of location.

Answer: At Bang & Olufsen, were committed to a framework of principles and policies that includes respect for universally recognised standards for protection of human rights, labour conditions, zero tolerance towards child or forced labour, and anti-corruption, as outlined in the 10 principles of UN Global Compact. As a result, we engage with our supply chain and partners to ensure certain minimum standards according to the UN Global Compact and other relevant standards and norms, as well as to drive continuous improvements to ensure that all our suppliers operate in compliance with the requirements. These requirements and ambitions are captured in our Supplier Code of Conduct, which is available on our website here.

Suppliers that are deemed to be at a high risk of deviation from the Code of Conduct requirements are audited through on-site evaluations by independent third parties at least once every two years. In the past two years, weve audited high-risk product related suppliers that account for 98.6% of our product-related spend. These audits include assessment of employee working conditions and practices. Its our view that if there were a concern around legal minimums being paid to our suppliers employees, it would have been uncovered during these audits.

For more information on our approach to being a responsible partner, please read pages 22 and 23 of our CSR & Sustainability Report 2020/21, which is available here.

Answer: We have an ambition to work towards climate neutrality, but we havent set a date for achieving our Net Zero target. However, we understand and are deeply concerned about the climate emergency that were all facing. As a result, well present at new ESG and Sustainability plan soon, which will include taking full responsibility for our value chain climate impact and striving to work towards a 1.5C future, in line with scientific advice. In August, well kick off a Scope 3 inventory of our entire value chain, so we can understand our total footprint and put in place a roadmap of emissions reduction activities.

Currently in our operations, we work to reduce the CO2 emissions by managing energy consumption and environmental impact in accordance with the principles of the ISO 14001 standard. We have two publicly stated annual targets related to carbon reduction in our operations. These are:

Answer: Bang & Olufsen believes that the integration of ethical, social and environmental perspectives is prerequisite for running a sustainable business. Were committed to conducting our business in a responsible and transparent manner, and we respect internationally recognised principles for protecting the environment, ethics, human and labour rights, and anti-corruption. Our business processes and policies are aligned with the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact; including environmental protection and respecting the fundamental rights of all human beings.

We engage with our supply chain and partners to ensure certain minimum standards according to the UN Global Compact and other relevant standards and norms, as well as to drive continuous improvements to ensure that all our suppliers operate in compliance with the requirements. These requirements and ambitions are captured in our Supplier Code of Conduct, which is available on our website here.

All suppliers are obliged to sign our Supplier Code of Conduct. Any suppliers assessed as being at a medium risk of deviation from the Code of Conduct requirements must undertake a supplier self-assessment audit, while those that are high risk suppliers are subject to on-site audits at their applicable manufacturing sites at least every second year. The audit is undertaken by an external third party, independent auditors according to rigorous ESG standards. Any non-compliances are remedied through an agreed upon corrective action plan, and expected to be closed within three months of the plan being agreed. If not, this is reported to our compliance committee for further review.

We have a zero-tolerance view of slavery and human trafficking, and we expect the same from all our suppliers. Our statement for Slavery and Human Trafficking in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015 can be read here.

B&Os Stakeholder and Sustainability Policy is available on our corporate website here.

Answer: We havent disclosed data to CDP previously; however, well do this for the first time in the coming quarter, through the CDP Supply Chain Program.

Answer: Bang & Olufsen is committed to minimising the adverse impact on the environment from the companys own operations and its supply chain, as well as being committed to continuously reducing the footprint of the companys products over their entire lifecycle. Resource efficiency, serviceability, and high quality as standard have been an integral part of the companys daily operations for years, and Bang & Olufsen has been widely recognised from a functional, aesthetical, and technological perspective for the design and long-lasting characteristics of its products. It is the companys ambition to push the boundaries even further by creating more sustainable products while also improving the user experience.

While we dont have a publicly stated renewable energy sourcing commitment in place, were investigating this for the next fiscal year (from June 1, 2022) and there is work ongoing to support the green transition.

This includes the recent decision to fully halt the use of natural gas in our operations. Natural gas has been used solely to power the anodizing process at our manufacturing site. In September 2022, well move from natural gas power to electric boiler powered anodization. On top of this, 17% of our fleet is already electric and were currently reviewing the fleet policy. While the review is still in process, we expect that it will require that the whole fleet becomes electric by end of fiscal year 2024/2025 at the latest.

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Bang and Olufsen sustainability What you need to know - TrustedReviews