I’m CEO of a company that decided to be closed today, on purpose. We’re sure some people would like to know why.
If you have time, this is Page Two of the Galveston News several days after Col Granger’s June 19th arrival with troops in the newly defeated state. The war had just ended in April so it took a couple of months for the Union Army, now back to being the US Army, to pull together the troops for the push into Texas. Before that, it was simply not possible to enforce Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863. So while the slaves were technically free, until the war was won and then the Army could arrive in force, it meant little.
Maybe a little like a hostage still in the hands of the Criminal who has agreed to release them. They’ve agreed, but until the Cops actually come in the room the ordeal is not over. Not at all.
So, a few months after the Civil War ended, the Army arrives in Texas where the reality of losing the war is starting to sink in. The newspaper printed a letter from one of their readers, a Mr James Sorley, who is apparently a local planter. It’s the third column from the left, down the middle of the page. The second column from the left includes a long affirmation by the Editors of the paper of Mr Sorley’s thesis. They agree with, and encourage all readers to closely follow the gentleman’s lead as a prudent approach.
Reading both, it is easier to understand what was happening at the time. Understanding that this was early summer in Texas just after the war and crops were in the ground. These people were struggling to figure out how to physically transition from the accounting system for slavery to paying black people for their labor.
How was that going to work exactly? There were no rules or laws about that.
Not in Texas.
The column talks about solutions in nearby states. All the planters in Virginia got together and formed a Freedmen’s Bureau that capped wages for the newly freed black Americans at $5/mo. Alabama decided to stay out of it and allow the former owners to pay as little, or as much I suppose, as they wanted.
If the slaves, hearing they were free, just walked away from their former owners and oppressors, Mr Sorely and the Galveston News supported arresting them. If they were found away from their farms or factories and were not able to show that they had a job they would be, and were, arrested. So the choice was: agree to whatever wage we decide we are going to pay you, or leave and get arrested. If you get go to jail you get to work for The State for free. That’s conditional liberation, if it is liberation at all.
So why is a technology company closed in 2025 on this particular day so long after these events? It is to stop for a moment and remember the day when a measure of Liberty came to Texas, and to America. And it arrived in Galveston that day in the person of US Army. Col Gilbert. Col Gilbert was acting as the well armed representative of the President informing the people of Texas that there was a new set of rules. You lost, this is what winning looks like.
Yet, on the ground, the difference was marginal. The now-former slaves in their thousands were victims of genocidal-scale human trafficking and were effectively stranded. The long search for equity and fairness for Americans continues in the long shadow of slavery and the War to end it. June 19th represents the inflection point that is the end of that ugly period in American history. And it represents the beginning of another era. An era that has attempted to build, in fits and starts, on past gains that have expanded Human Rights for all people.
That’s worth a day of contemplation, and volunteering if you can.
