Every year on June 19th, African-Americans celebrate “Juneteenth,” the anniversary of the day slavery was abolished in Texas in 1865. Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at a Juneteenth rally just outside of Colorado Springs, CO. In her remarks, Alveda connected the denial of African-Americans’ human rights through slavery to the denial of unborn children’s human rights through abortion, drawing a parallel between the Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade decisions. From the Colorado Springs Gazette:
One hundred and fifty years later, the Dred Scott decision still steams Alveda King.
Slaves, according to the 1857 Supreme Court ruling, weren’t citizens. Instead, according to the court, they were property.
But a second Supreme Court decision — the 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion — riles her just as much. Talking at a Juneteenth celebration on Sunday in Fountain’s John Metcalfe Park, King said the ruling paved the way for a different form of slavery — one that has endured long past the Emancipation Proclamation.
“Civil rights begins with human rights,” said King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. “From conception until natural death, for everybody.
“Now it’s unbelievable that Dred Scott and womb babies have been told they’re not human beings.”
Except, conspicuously, the only other local news outlet to report on the event so far, KKTV, a CBS affiliate, covered Alveda’s presence at the event, but said nothing about her remarks on abortion. This is the KKTV article in full:
June 19th is “Juneteenth,” marking the day in 1865 when word finally got to a group of slaves in Texas that they were free.
That was more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln.
The day is celebrated around the country, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s niece, Dr. Alveda King, was at Fountain’s Juneteenth Sunday.
She says if the event has all the trappings of a 4th of July party, there’s a reason. “Independence and emancipation are very similar,” she says. “You just had two parts of the country fighting for freedom in different ways. But freedom for everybody ends up being the same.”
Media bias? You betcha.
