Editorial Roundup: Recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. June 19, 2018.

There is a vogue in American holidays. Some stay in fashion, others fade. Some have their roots deep in the past, others are largely artificial constructs.

In recent years, Halloween has become a big deal rather than the kids’ night to play trick-or-treat till nine o’clock - a North American version of Mexico’s Day of the Dead. Then there’s Thanksgiving, perhaps the most American of holidays. It has met a felt need - to express our just plain gratefulness for the blessings of this land - and so a semi-history, semi-mythology grew up around it. Its Southern roots were largely supplanted by all those cutouts of Indians and Pilgrims that adorn elementary school classrooms every fall.

As for July 4, officially Independence Day, that grumpy old puritan John Adams foresaw with uncanny accuracy what it would become in the years ahead even though he understood the bloody price freedom would extract. As he wrote his wife Abigail, this day “will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival … solemnized with pomp and parade … bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.”

Mr. Adams got only one detail wrong: the actual date. He thought it would be July 2 - the day the Continental Congress resolved that these colonies would henceforth be free and independent states, rather than July 4, when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Leave it to dour Mr. Adams to think We the People would celebrate the issuing of a committee report.

A holiday requires more than an official proclamation; it needs a narrative. Like Christmas. Or Labor Day. Or Veterans Day.

Thankfully, Tuesday’s holiday has an original narrative, too. It was the day all of us were free at last, thank God Almighty.

Much as freedom came to the slaves, Juneteenth has spread only slowly, unevenly, moving in fits and starts. Just as jazz, another great American invention with its roots in the African American heritage, came up the river from New Orleans, so Juneteenth moved like a ripple out of Galveston, Texas. That’s where the Union commander landed on June 19, 1865, with the news that The War was over and, oh yes, the slaves had been freed - two and a half years before!

No wonder Juneteenth was slow to catch on over the years; the end of slavery on this continent did not come on one definite date amid lightning and thunder. No waters parted, no great Exodus was scripturally enshrined. Instead, the wheels of emancipation ground slow and exceedingly fine. Some slaves were freed at once, others were not. Some heard about it, others did not. Some believed it, others did not.

Emancipation was more a mundane legal process than a voice from the Heavens proclaiming liberty throughout the land. Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation was an exercise of the commander in chief’s wartime powers rather than some great declaration that all men are created equal.

How strange, too, that Abraham Lincoln, who contributed two almost biblical messages to American history in the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural, should have written an Emancipation Proclamation that has all the romance of a real estate deed, and not a single stirring line. The Great Emancipator had become, as in a way he always was, the cautious lawyer. He was careful to proclaim liberty only in that part of the land where he was sure he legally could, but practically couldn’t in the rebellious states. He was using emancipation as a weapon of war, aware that it could backfire but also hopeful that it would spell the end of slavery everywhere in the country soon enough. It was all so indefinite, including the dates. Which explains why there’s an emotional vacuum for Juneteenth to fill.

Juneteenth has certainly not filled it yet. Like freedom itself, it has great potential, and it’s being observed far and wide. But the word needs to spread to more Americans. It has the makings of a great American holiday: It commemorates an actual event—the landing of Major General Gordon Granger, U.S.A., at Galveston, Texas, U.S.A. again. And it has roots in folklore as well as history.

The transformation of Juneteenth from a parochial, informal, almost underground holiday into a nationally accepted one could be a slave narrative, with fact and fancy all mixed up. But its identity with one distinctive group of Americans, rather than restricting the holiday, is no barrier to its general acceptance. After all, on St. Patrick’s Day all Americans are Irish.

Besides, Juneteenth is connected not only with all-American ideals like freedom and independence but … food! And nobody of any race, color, creed, religion or national origin is gonna turn down good barbecue. We could get a whole national dialogue started on that ever spicy subject. Now that would be a real national conversation - instead of one of those hoked-up political jobs. Dry rub or wet sauce? Chicken or beef or, this being Arkansas, pork? Now there’s a debate to have!

Nobody knows the trouble Juneteenth’s seen, but the fact that we recognize it shows that we can overcome. And shall.

More than a great past, Juneteenth has a great future. Like freedom itself, it all depends on what we make of it.

___

Texarkana Gazette. June 19, 2018.

Soon we will be celebrating the Fourth of July marking America’s independence from England.

On the west side of State Line Avenue, Texas Independence Day is marked on March 2, a commemoration of the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico.

But there is another independence day as well. One that also has its roots in the Lone Star State.

In September 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that slaves would be freed in those U.S. states deemed to still be in rebellion against the United States as of January 1863.

The country was in the grips of the Civil War. And since Lincoln’s order only applied to 10 states that were part of the Confederacy, there was no way to enforce freedom at the time.

As the tides of war changed and Union forces began to occupy areas under Confederate control, freedom came gradually across the South.

It would be more than two years before the slaves of Texas were freed.

On June 18, 1865, General Gordon Granger of the Union Army arrived with his troops in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state. And the next day he walked out onto the balcony of Ashton Villa in that city and read the following:

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

Former slaves took to the streets of Galveston to celebrate. Their joy spread across the state as the news spread.

It became a tradition across Texas and eventually across the South to celebrate the end of slavery on June 19. Eventually, the name Juneteenth was coined to mark the day.

The day has been recognized since 1980 as an official state holiday in Texas. Forty-one other states - including Arkansas - and the District of Columbia also recognize the day.

A great evil was ended that day. The following decades saw oppression and a struggle for equality. Many would argue that we are still not where we should be. That’s true, but we have made enormous strides.

It’s a celebration of freedom. It’s a reminder of our past and of our hope for the future. It’s not a holiday for any one people, but for all Americans.

Tuesday was Juneteenth in our Texas, our United States.

___

The Jonesboro Sun. June 19, 2018.

Now you can’t even get Chinese food delivered to parts of North Jonesboro after dark.

That’s after a Dragon City delivery driver was shot during a recent attempted robbery in the 500 block of Marshall Street.

The restaurant says it will no longer deliver to addresses in North Jonesboro after dark because of the shooting. Pizza and other restaurant delivery to North Jonesboro has already been halted after the sun goes down because of frequent armed robberies - most of which garnered only a few dollars and a cold pizza or two.

That says a lot about crime in North Jonesboro. What it mostly says is that the city needs to step up its patrols of neighborhoods because the good people living there are under assault.

City Councilman Charles Coleman likened the area to the Wild West.

“It seems like Dodge City, but it isn’t,” Coleman told Sun reporter Stephen Simpson. “It’s North Jonesboro.”

The Jonesboro Police Department would be doing everyone a favor if it opened a substation in North Jonesboro and put police on foot and bike patrols to better connect with residents who live there and desperately need their help.

Nearly every day we publish stories in the newspaper about crime - violent crime - in North Jonesboro. While there obviously is a criminal element operating there, we must remember that most of the folks living in North Jonesboro are good people just trying to live decent lives.

Yes, many of them are surviving on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, but they deserve more attention from police than upper-scale neighborhoods where crime is infrequent.

Here’s a sampling from recent weeks:

- A man called police after two men with ski masks tried to break into his home after knocking on his door in the 500 block of Miller Street. When he saw them dressed in all black and ski masks, he quickly tried to shut the door. As the door was shutting, one of the suspects attempted to stab him.

- A woman was arrested after police said she entered a victim’s home in March in the 300 block of State Street and attacked her while a friend recorded it on Facebook. The woman was badly beaten by the assailant.

- On June 3 in the same 300 block of State Street, a man hit someone in the head with a chainsaw, threatened to cut a baby’s throat and burn a man like a “crispy chicken.” He was arrested later in the 1800 block of Self Circle after police said gunshots were fired from his home.

- A man was arrested June 1 after police said he beat and choked his girlfriend and tried to hit her with a hatchet on May 4 in the 400 block of Melrose Street. The victim said her boyfriend grabbed her by the throat and choked her until she almost passed out. He also picked up a small hatchet and attempted to strike her with it.

- A man was arrested June 1 after fire marshals said he tried to burn down his apartment in the 1800 block of Self Circle because he had received an eviction notice.

- A man was arrested May 30 after police said a bag of meth was found inside his residence in the 1600 block of N. Church St. Officers were there to conduct a probation search.

And the list goes on and on ad nauseam.

Coleman, who is also a pastor and school board member, said he believes the city has neglected North Jonesboro, leading to its continued decline.

It’s hard to argue his point.

“The park events and the upgrades are being dedicated south of Johnson. North of Johnson, we have nothing. The north side has been forgotten by the city itself.”

Disruption of resources by the city has helped create the situation on Patrick Street and Cedar Heights, Coleman said of the drug dealing, constant shots fired calls and shootings.

“The lower income buildings and low-rate housing applications are automatic magnets for some of these problems,” Coleman said. “There has been no investment in the inner city. It screams for people to come here and do things because nobody cares what happens over here.”

Coleman said the situation has caused an entire section of Jonesboro to become a center of poverty, and the children being raised in that environment are coming into their own.

“Youngsters are growing up not caring who lives or dies,” the city councilman said. “People are scared to call the police.”

The police need to be where the crime is being committed. Better community policing, more investment by the city in North Jonesboro youth activities, and the rest of the city caring about what happens there will do much to remedy the problems.

North Jonesboro needs our help. If we continue to ignore it - throw committees and promising words at it - North Jonesboro will soon become the next Blytheville.

And nobody wants to live there.