Black Friday Name Origin Joseph P. Barrett originally was published Nov. 25, 2015. The men responsible for naming the day, Joe Barrett and Nate Kleger were co-workers and friends of William Lawrence Sr. We will never forget you Uncle Joe.
Joseph P. Barrett, the man who gave us “Black Friday”.
Black Friday, in reference to the day after Thanksgiving, was first used in a 1951 article in the trade publication Factory Management and Maintenance” and concerned the habit of employees calling in sick the day after the holiday to get a four-day weekend.
The article by M. J. Murphy recommended just making the day a paid holiday.
However, the term’s use as a day of shopping chaos has a Philadelphia root, the popularization of which can be squarely placed on the shoulders of Joseph P. Barrett and Nathan Kleger, who were police reporters with the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
Philadelphia traffic squad cops had been using the phrase to describe the massive Center City traffic jams that occurred the day after Thanksgiving. Kleger and Barrett wrote a front-page piece circa 1960 in which they appropriated the phrase. The paper in ensuing years continued with the phrase and local TV soon joined.
By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor-and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be-That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks-for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation-for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war-for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed-for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted-for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions-to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually-to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed-to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord-To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us-and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.
When my wife and I worked as State of Pennsylvania drones, one of us usually marched in the Philly Labor Day parade, to show solidarity with our union, the Pennsylvania Social Services Union a.k.a PSSU.
Exactly how did all this Labor Day marching get started?
Matthew Maguire and Peter Mcguire conspired to create Labor Day, and the first Labor Day parade was held in New York City in 1882.
Theses articles, here and here, point to Matthew Maguire not being granted “Father of Labor Day” status due to his strong socialist leanings, including being the Socialist Party candidate for president in 1896.
Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1896, hoping to make amends for sending in the military to squash the Pullman Railway strike.
Grover Cleveland did not become the first president to serve three non-consecutive term However, Grover Cleveland remains the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms. That could change next year.
The author proposes that “over the past thirty years, international bureaucracies have played a growing role in making the world a better place for socialism.”
Nowadays, rather than discuss the Pullman strike of 1894, we discuss Labor Day sales and barbecues, and we no longer march. One might say capitalism has won.
The Unanimous Declaration– A good way to start today is to remember what it is all about. If you haven’t read this in a while take a few minutes an do so
.IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1 Georgia: Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton
Column 2 North Carolina: William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton
Column 3 Massachusetts: John Hancock Maryland: Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton
Column 4 Pennsylvania: Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean
Column 5 New York: William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark
Column 6 New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Massachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
It is a day for honoring White Republican men, the men who heroically marched a thousand miles through swamps and dust and steel and shot to free poor helpless slaves from evil Democrats.
Today, June 19, is Juneteenth, the most recent of our 11 Federal Holidays, having been signed into law on June 17, 2021.
It commemorates June 14, 1865 when the Juneteenth Order (General Order #3), co-written by General Gordon Granger and his subordinate Major Frederick Emery, was posted throughout Galveston, TX.
Pennsylvania deems the day an “official annual observance”, first recognized as an observance in 2019.
Texas was the first state to recognize Juneteenth as a permanent state holiday, it does not recognize the day as an observance.?!
Opal Lee is called “the grandmother of Juneteenth”. She began a walking campaign at the the age of 89 (2016) which eventually led to the creation of the Juneteenth holiday. She has written a Juneteenth children’s book. She is raising funds for a National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the same city where, as a child, she watched her house being burnt down by a white mob. She is quite an extraordinary woman.
Not all Afro-Americans see Juneteenth in the same way; Professor Robert A.. Brown of Morehouse notes “Lawmakers have been more willing to engage in performative symbolism than passing laws to make substantive change”.
He cites police reform and reparations as two roads not yet taken. Others add voting rights to this list.
The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution on June 14, 1777 by approving the design of New Jersey delegate Francis Hopkinson for the American flag.
The first time this flag over a foreign territory was in early 1778 at Nassau, Bahamas, upon capture of a British Fort.
Presidents Coolidge and Wilson both issued proclamations for Flag Day but it only became official on Aug. 3, 1949 when President Harry Truman signed the law approved by Congress.
It is not an official federal holiday, however.
Did Betsy Ross sew the first flag? The claim was circulated by her descendants, citing her previous business dealings with George Washington.
This can’t be established with certainty but it is plausible and consistent with the evidence .
In Betsy Ross’s Philadelphia our truth is “Betsy Ross made the flag. This is our story and we’re sticking to it.”
Some, notably Colen Kaepernick and the Southern Poverty Law Center, object to display of the 13-star flag claiming it symbolizes hate. They cite its use by some extremist groups.
Others point out that any symbol can co-opted and the overwhelming number of those who fly the original do so out of sincere patriotism.
Maybe we should honor both our founding and the multi-race, multi-faith country we have
