P.O.P. OBSERVES PASSING OF 13TH AMENDMENT ENDING SLAVERY

The People's Organization For Progress (POP) will hold an observance on the anniversary of the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which abolished slavery on Sunday, December 18, 2018, 2:00pm at the Lincoln Monument, located at the intersection of West Market Street and Springfield Avenue in downtown Newark, New Jersey.

This is the first such observance ever held by the organization.

The 13th Amendment which was introduced after the Civil War, was passed by both houses of Congress, and was ratified by the legislatures of 27 of the 36 states, a three-fourths majority. It became law on December 18, 1865 after Secretary of State William Seward issued the official statement that it had been ratified by the required number of states.

“We decided to have this observance because we felt that there should be some type of official recognition of one of the most historically significant events in U.S. History, the abolition of slavery,” said Lawrence Hamm, founding chairman.

For many years, many in the African-Americans have observed the January 1st, the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation to observe the end of slavery. In recent years, Juneteenth, referring to the ending of slavery in Texas on June 19th, 1865, has gained traction as an observation to mark slavery’s end.

Ironically, the observation takes place at a time when the ‘exception clause’ of the Amendment has gained the spotlight as the critical enabling agent of the emergence of what is now called the Prison Industrial Complex. The organization has recently co-sponsored a showing of Ava Duvernay’s critically acclaimed documentary ‘The 13th,’ addressing this controversial legacy. More to that point, the organization will also host a ‘National March for Reparations’ on Saturday, June 27th, here in Newark, to address the residual and ongoing damage and discrimination from Slavery in the United States