June 19, 2024
Dear Allen Temple Family and Friends,
On this day set aside to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States - June 19, 1865, let us remember the price our ancestors paid with their lives for the freedom we enjoy today. During these times, where American history is being reduced to a single distorted narrative, we must never forget the horrors of chattel slavery and the impact it continues to have on successive generations.
Dear Allen Temple Family and Friends,
On this day set aside to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States - June 19, 1865, let us remember the price our ancestors paid with their lives for the freedom we enjoy today. During these times, where American history is being reduced to a single distorted narrative, we must never forget the horrors of chattel slavery and the impact it continues to have on successive generations.
Today, I travel. Tomorrow, I speak at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Greensboro, North Carolina. Baptists of all backgrounds will gather for their General Assembly and for the Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice Trailblazer Luncheon. These awards seek to honor and highlight the work of individuals and churches committed to confronting overt and passive racism wherever it exists. This work remains vitally important as we continue to see increased racial, economic and social polarization in our nation. The fight continues!
As you are deciding how to spend this Juneteenth, I ask you to remember Mother Opal Lee, known as the "Grandmother" of the movement. At the age of 89, she decided to walk from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, DC, in an effort to have Juneteenth declared a national holiday. She walked two and a half miles each day to symbolize the two and a half years that Black Texans waited between when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, on January 1, 1863, abolishing slavery, and the day that message of liberation arrived in Galveston, where Black people were still enslaved. We are the beneficiaries of her many years of advocacy.
I pray her dedication and sacrifice serves as inspiration for each of us who dare to be disciples of the brown Palestinian Jewish Jesus, to do what we can with what God has given us. Be reminded that "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave or free, neither is there male or female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28 (NIV)
And if you are able, take a walk! Enjoy this day and pray for me...
Blessings to you!
As you are deciding how to spend this Juneteenth, I ask you to remember Mother Opal Lee, known as the "Grandmother" of the movement. At the age of 89, she decided to walk from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, DC, in an effort to have Juneteenth declared a national holiday. She walked two and a half miles each day to symbolize the two and a half years that Black Texans waited between when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, on January 1, 1863, abolishing slavery, and the day that message of liberation arrived in Galveston, where Black people were still enslaved. We are the beneficiaries of her many years of advocacy.
I pray her dedication and sacrifice serves as inspiration for each of us who dare to be disciples of the brown Palestinian Jewish Jesus, to do what we can with what God has given us. Be reminded that "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave or free, neither is there male or female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28 (NIV)
And if you are able, take a walk! Enjoy this day and pray for me...
Blessings to you!
Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson
Senior Pastor
Senior Pastor
