Iron Man #55 (October 1972)

The 1970s were a time of change in Marvel. Stan Lee stepped down as editor-in-chief, and Roy Thomas had stepped into that chair. Thanks to a revision of the Comics Code, the Marvel Universe didn't just start embracing fads like blaxploitation and the kung-fu craze. It was also a time when the Marvel Universe was becoming more cosmic. And much of it was thanks to one man: Jim Starlin.

First working for Marvel in 1972, Starlin was both a writer and an artist. His first job for them was providing finished art for The Amazing Spider-Man. But he would later get involved with another book, one that starred a certain Armored Avenger. He provided art duties on a couple issues of Iron Man's book, which Starlin used to build a mythos within the Marvel Universe, a mythos that would go on to span numerous titles. But every epic saga has to start somewhere. The comic we're looking at this week was the start of Starlin's Thanos saga. This is Iron Man #55!

The cover is a Jim Starlin, Joe Sinnott, Gaspar Saladino, and Morrie Kuramoto piece. It's pretty neat. It depicts Drax the Destroyer bursting through a wall like he was Superman as Iron Man is being besieged by a pair of identical monsters. He proclaims that the Blood Brothers can't stop him even if they crush Iron Man. What I find interesting about this cover is that instead of his traditional purple, Drax is shown wearing blue. My guess is this was maybe because green and purple are seen as (outside of the Hulk) a color combination associated with villains (Green Goblin, Ringmaster, etc), and they wanted to show that Drax was more of a "heroic" character. 

"Beware the... Blood Brothers!"
Writers: Jim Starlin (Plot, character conception), Mike Friedrich (script)
Penciler: Jim Starlin
Inker: Mike Esposito
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Unknown
Editor: Roy Thomas
Editor-in-Chief: Roy Thomas

The story begins with Drax the Destroyer, bombastically warning our modern-day knight about the menace of the twin alien terrors known as the Blood Brothers. However, his warning has come a bit late as our man is currently getting his tin-plated tail handed to him by said Blood Brothers.

"Where's our money, Stark?!"

The twin aliens take the knocked-out Iron Man onto a spaceship. Said spaceship flies off and heads to another world, one used to house a particular prisoner.

"We are going to binge-watch all of Real Housewives of Chandilar, Drax!"

His jailer, a certain Mad Titanian known as Thanos, knew that Drax was trying to telepathically call for help, but chose to let him do it because, well...Thanos thinks he's no threat to anyone. Drax vows to escape and complete his one life's mission, kill Thanos. Kill him until he is dead. 

It's here we get a flashback as to how Drax managed to reach Iron Man, contacting the mind of Tony Stark...while he was in the middle of a business meeting. 

This gets Stark to don his Iron Man togs, as the Blood Brothers snuck into Stark's company's headquarters. Meanwhile, Drax was able to telepathically inform Stark about the people of Titan, and the origins of Thanos.

Iron Man's response to getting a mind download? Hit 'em with the Fascinating Eyebrow.

A little bit of Early Installment Weirdness here. You see the three in the lower left corner of the panel? The other two guys are A'lars, aka Mentor, and Eros, aka the future Avenger Starfox. Yeah, they debuted here, too. Thanos is in shadow next to them. He's already got his iconic look in: the purple skin, and the blue and gold outfit. But A'lars and Eros don't look quite recognizable. They have purple skin as well. Mentor's outfit is red instead of the green and yellow costumes he'd be most seen in. And Eros? His costume is blue, red, and purple instead of red and white. And he's a blond instead of a redhead. Yeah, you can tell they hadn't quite finished "cooking" yet. 

Anyway, after his exile, Thanos returned with an army and took over Titan. In desperation, Mentor, the ruler of Titan (and father of Thanos), turned to a cosmic being for some aid.

"Keep it down, you noisy creep! You're ruining my beauty sleep!"

Meet Kronos. He was once an Eternal scientist, until an experiment he was working on with cosmic energies went wrong. It caused an explosion that wrecked his home and destroyed his body. However, his mind survived and literally became one with the cosmos. So, yeah. He's literally one with the universe, man.

Kronos creates something to help the Titanians take back their home from Thanos: Drax the Destroyer. And destroy he did. He utterly wrecked Thanos's forces and took the fight to The Mad Titan himself. However, Thanos was no slouch against the powerhouse and gave as good as he took. 

The fight got so intense that it blew a chunk out of Titan. Yeah, Titan as in the Saturnian moon. The battle left Drax weakened, allowing Thanos to capture him and take him to Earth as a prisoner. And now we're here. When the Blood Brothers arrive on Titan, Iron Man is able to use his repulsors to blast the twin aliens away...where he finds Drax.

Yeah, Drax earlier claimed Thanos took him to Earth. I think that's an editorial miss there. Anyway, Iron Man tries to rescue Drax but gets blasted by Thanos for his trouble. And to add insult to injury, Thanos stomps on Stark's right hand, wrecking his repulsor.

Yeah, good thing that unlike a lot of people, Tony can afford hospital bills. The Blood Brothers take our man away. Drax gets a telepathic call from ISAAC, the supercomputer that helped run Titan. Evidently it survived the planet getting wrecked. And so did Mentor. This allowed him to determine Drax's location. With that, he fires a beam at Earth. The beam hits Iron Man's unibeam in his chestplate. It destroys Drax's bonds, freeing the Destroyer. 

Drax and the Armored Avenger are able to give the Blood Brothers a beatdown. While they fight, Drax explains that the beam was in Drax's own words "a power beam transmitted to your armor", and the armor focused the beam to free Drax. Why he couldn't just directly blast Drax free, I have no idea. I'm presuming that Mentor didn't want to risk the beam harming Drax, so he used Iron Man's armor essentially as a lens to make sure that didn't happen. There was no guarantee that it wouldn't have fried Tony, but hey, comic book science.

Thanos threatens to destroy the complex, but the two heroes stop him. In the process, they make another discovery:

"AGH, MY BEAUTIFUL ROBOTIC SKULL!"

Yeah, Thanos was not Thanos. He was some robot. Must have been inspired by Dr. Doom, ha ha! They realize this is a trap.

Thanos planned to use the robot to occupy the heroes until the complex explodes. He hoped it would blow them up real good. 

However, Drax and Tony escape.

Drax thanks Tony, asking how he can be repaid. The Armored Avenger is just glad that Thanos was stopped and nobody is dead. Well, presumably except the Blood Brothers, but no one cares about the Blood Brothers. And they'll appear in future stories anyway. The story ends with the two parting ways with a handshake. 

It's a fun story, but not the best Iron Man tales I've ever read. However, I do think it's a very interesting story. What is the most interesting thing about this issue is how...different Drax and Thanos are portrayed compared to nowadays. Drax has his characteristic obsession with destroying Thanos here right from the start, but he's portrayed as more erudite and presumably smarter than he would be later on in the comics and MCU. I liked the ending where he and Iron Man parted ways with a handshake, showing a mutual respect between them, and possibly a growing friendship in the future. 

Thanos is portrayed here as a straight-up one-note villainous conqueror than the more complex characterization that he'd get under Starlin's writing pen over time. Which makes sense, it's their first appearance, and presumably there's still some things to hash out. 

This comic is pretty much early Starlin. He conceived the characters and the story, while Friedrich provided the script. And as for his art, we can see some of the developing hallmarks of Starlin's drawing: the usage of lots of panels, and heavy amounts of detail, especially in the faces. It's very unique for the time.

Again, it's not the best Iron Man story I've ever read, but I still recommend it, if only for the purpose of seeing how certain aspects of the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe have grown. If you want to read this for yourself, I recommend tracking down the 2013 trade paperback The Avengers vs. Thanos. It can also be found in the 2022 trade paperback Iron Man Epic Collection Vol. 5: Battle Royal. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! If you like what I write and want to give this blog some additional support, please make a donation to my Ko-fi! See you next time!

Summer Solstice

  Happy Summer Solstice, everyone!

What is the Summer Solstice? Well, basically on this day, one of Earth's poles is tilting the furthest towards the sun. The summer solstice happens every year. From the perspective of those on Earth, the Sun is in the highest position possible in the sky. In the Northern Hemisphere, where I live at, the Earth's maximum tilt happens towards the sun, as shown here.

In the Southern Hemisphere (think places like Australia and New Zealand), their summer solstice will come in December. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Wait, tilting towards the Sun?" Well, yes. You see, as the Earth orbits the sun, the planet itself spins around at a slight angle. This angle is known as axial tilt, or obliquity. 

This tilt can change as the Earth undergoes its orbit. It's why, from the perspective of the Northern Hemisphere, days get longer in summer, and the nights get longer in winter. the tilt causes different parts of the earth to get less or more sunlight at different times. 

Many cultures all over the world see these solstices as significant. For example, in Sweden, this is considered a major holiday and the country closes down, like on Christmas.

So, yeah. The summer solstice is pretty cool. Hope it was a good day for you! Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! If you like what I write and want to give my blog some additional support, please make a donation to my Ko-fi! See you next time!

Father's Day

  Happy Father's Day, everyone!

To all those with fathers and stepfathers, father figures, and the mothers who have to do double duty, I want to wish you a wonderful day today!

Celebrated on the third Sunday in June, Father's Day had a couple of parts to its origin. One of the origins of the tradition was from a memorial service for a group of miners who died in an accident in Monongah, West Virginia in 1907.

In 1910, Sonora Smart Dodd, daughter of a Civil War veteran, founded Father's Day in Spokane, Washington. She was inspired to find it by a sermon about Mother's Day. She wanted there to be a companion celebration for fathers and fatherhood. She originally intended it to be on June 5, her father's birthday. However, a celebration was unable to be prepared in time, so it became the third Sunday in June.

The celebration was not a big success at first, but Dodd would not give up. She had help from various trade groups, like men's retailers. It would lead the holiday to be derided at first as just a stunt to rack up sales, but the trade groups got the last laugh as the holiday ended up growing in popularity.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson would declare the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. In 1972, President Richard Nixon would sign an official Father's Day into law. You can find out more about its history right here. 

Thank you for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! If you like what I write and want to give this blog a bit of additional support, please make a donation to my Ko-fi! See you next time!

Marvel Preview #11 (June 1977)

Since June is Pride Month, I wanted to take a look at a comic book starring a character that was a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Both the Marvel and the DC Universes have their fair share of characters that fit into that category. However, I wanted to focus on a character that most people are unaware that is LGBTQ+. As such, I chose Peter Quill, the original Star-Lord.

Star-Lord has graced this blog before, mostly as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, all the way back in August 2014, I did take a look at his debut in Marvel Premiere #4 (January 1976). Wow, twelve years ago. Boy, have I grown as a writer since then. 

I know you may be asking, "Wait, Peter Quill is LGBTQ+"? Well, yes, he is. He's bisexual and polyamorous. This was established in Guardians of the Galaxy #9 (December 2020). You see, Star-Lord had seemingly died saving the universe from the Greco-Roman gods (Yeah, that was a whole thing). But in actuality, he had ended up in an alternate universe. While there, he had ended up in the company of a pair of alien mercenaries named Mors and Aradia. Peter would end up in a polyamorous relationship with them for over one hundred years, even fathering a son with Aradia named Rocky, who was named in honor of Rocket Raccoon. 

The comic we're looking at today is one of his early adventures, long before his becoming a Guardian of the Galaxy, when he was just an angry astronaut, but had the potential to be more. This is Marvel Preview #11!  

The cover is a Ken Barr piece. It's pretty cool, depicting our man Star-Lord in space blasting at a spaceship. The cover promises one man against a galactic empire, and the story...kind of delivers. It also promises a science fiction spectacular in the tradition of legendary author Robert A. Heinlein. Fun fact, this got Marvel into a bit of trouble. You see, when this magazine originally came out, Heinlein's lawyers called Marvel Comics and basically told them, "Hey, he doesn't want people to think he's associated with you guys" because Chris Claremont was homaging a series of juvenile-aimed books Heinlein had written in the 40s and 50s for his take on Star-Lord. You can read more about that here. So, the magazines had to be recalled and reprinted. Personally, if I were him, I'd have been like "Hey, maybe will let me write something for them since they're fans of mine." Still, this is a great cover. I'd love to have this as a poster. 

"1: Windholme / Cinnibar / 3: Sparta / 4: The Hollow Crown"
Writer: Chris Claremont
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Terry Austin
Colorist: None (story is in black-and-white)
Letterers: Tom Orzechowski, Irv Watanabe
Editors: John Warner, Ralph Macchio, Roger Silfer
Editor-in-Chief: Arche Goodwin 

The story begins on the planet known as Windholme. A world on the outer rims of an imperial empire, this planet was settled by refugees. Refugees who just wanted to live their lives in peace and quiet. For three hundred years, they got exactly that. Until now. The empire has come to take their world., the planet itself for its resources, and the people for slave labor. 

However, one native of Windholme, a young man named Kip, is not content to stand by and let his people and home be enslaved. However, the armored soldiers of the empire have a way to counter his spirit, by savagely beating him half to death with their armored fists. The beating only serves to fuel Kip's defiance.

"You alien buttheads will never get my mom's snickerdoodle recipe!"

The lights suddenly go out. And when they get turned on, Kip...has gone. 

It turned out someone had used the darkness to rescue Kip. His rescuer is a fellow Windholme native named Sandy. 

"Also, I totally did not find your resistance really hot."

She's as tough as she is cute. She had figured more of the natives would want to fight back. She was impressed by Kip's courage, hence why she rescued him. Thing is, they're still on a ship heading for a planet called Kandahar. And once they get there, they'll pump the ship full of knockout gas. The two then hear an alarm klaxon.

The ship has caught an unusual sight.

"What? Can't a man do some space thinking in peace?"

It appears to be a gigantic version of our man Star-Lord. Just sitting there. In space. Thinking...menacingly. But it's a bit of a trick. It's actually Peter's ship named...Ship. Yeah, the man's a lot of things, but he's not very imaginative when it comes to names.

Ship cripples the slave transport, and the real Star-Lord flies in. The guards are tough, but he is tougher, easily taking care of them. Kip finds a discarded blaster and uses it to make a hole in another guard. As far as he's concerned, Star-Lord is his new best friend. Speaking of Peter, he makes his way to the bridge. He notices that the bridge crew are leaving said room in a hurry. That's because they rigged the bridge to blow.

Peter figures the whole ship is rigged this way as well. The bridge crew are stopped by Kip. Thanks to Peter's actions earlier, he and Sandy manage to liberate the other Windholmers. And they give the bridge crew the most brutal beatdown ever.

With the slaves freed, Peter offers to take them back to Windholme. Unlike their other homeworlds, the Imperials haven't made that world uninhabitable yet, so they can still build new lives there. It's here that Kip and Peter formally meet for the first time. Peter says he'll leave a network of satellites to protect Windholme. Kip points out that those satellites could fail somehow, leading to Windholme getting attacked again. It reminds Peter of his own childhood tragedy, witnessing his mother dying and his swearing for vengeance. In essence, he feels a kinship with Kip.

Kip wants the blood of those who sent the slavers to Windholme. And he's willing to go through Hades to get it. Star-Lord points out one logical problem: they have to find that someone first. Luckily, Ship has a lead. But they have to move quickly. 

Two days pass. The captured beings are settled on Windholme. With that problem solved, Kip, Sandy, and Quill can now pursue the beings that tried to enslave their people. Ship points out that Kip is what is known as a "Windrunner". He's actually a powerful psychic being that used his power to help on hunts. Quill asks if Kip can use his talents to find the slavers' base. He agrees to try.

"Check it out, guys! I'm a cloud!"

Said talents allow Kip to find the slavers' home base, the planet Delta Corianus IV, or as it's commonly known as, Cinnbar. The leader is a man named Kyras Shakati. A man who is as twisted and evil as they come. Alright, they got a name and place. It's time to wreck shop.

The trio head to Cinnabar, a planet of pleasure and pain. Quill, Sandy, and Kip sneak their way into what is presumably Shakati's palace, when most of the staff are out in dreamland.

The group encounter what appear to be metal statues of soldiers.

"Ye gods, what ugly statues!"

However, these statues are actually advanced automatons, and their weapons aren't strong enough to destroy them. Sandy finds a hidden panel that could be used as an escape hatch, but a trap door activates, sending the three seemingly parsecs away.

"Oh great, all my stuff is still here!"

This is the Sea Fang, the ship that belonged to Kip's parents. But it cannot be. According to Kip, he saw this ship get destroyed and his parents die as a result. The three spot a giant King Kraken about to attack the Sea Fang. They must owe Liam Neeson money.

The monstrous giant squid smashes into the boat, sending Peter Quill overboard. However, Quill doesn't go down that easy. Despite the Kraken managing to grab him, the Star-Lord gives him the tip of a harpoon.

Kip finds himself back with his parents and ends up seeing them die again. Something funny is going on here. Star-Lord resurfaces, and it gets weirder.

Star-Lord's plastic surgery got horribly botched.

Peter finds himself seeing two things: himself and his new traveling companions in the seas of Windholme...and at the same time in a chamber under a crystal.

Clearly, someone is screwing with their minds. But what is real, and what is the illusion? The Kraken, injured but still alive (and presumably really freakin' angry) rears up to attack again. Star-Lord's senses tell him he has no weapon, but at the same time, he can feel his blaster in his hand. The desperate astronaut makes a gamble. 

"Aw, man! I had only one payment left on that thing!"

And it was a good one. The seas, the Kraken, it was all an illusion generated by a crystal based on Kip's own memories. An alien named Arak...

No, not him! He's a DC guy, and he's from Earth! This Arak is an alien flunky, easily taken down by Sandy, who is a talented thief, and not half-bad fighter either. Shakati pleads for mercy, offering Star-Lord information that he may find very important. Sadly, it's never revealed as Sandy tosses a dagger into his heart. Sandy reveals that she spotted a blaster implanted into one of his fingers, and he was going to give Peter a faceful of laser. While Peter scans the computer banks, Kip and Sandy bond a little and suddenly decide that hey, being a couple would be nice. Let's try that!

More of Shakati's men attack, and the three decide to, well, make like a banana and split.

It's leave, Tannen! Make like a tree and leave! But that's not important right now. The three head to a craft, only to learn it's booby-trapped. They try to fly off in it, they blow up real good. 

Ship makes her way through the atmosphere and gets the three out of there before the place, well...blows up real good.

Star-Lord was able to learn something from Shakati's computers: the slavery ring was funding a coup. There's a plot to replace the emperor of this interstellar empire with his uncle Prince Gareth. The ship is on its way to Sparta, the imperial homeworld, and the Empire's forces are trying to stop Ship from getting there. Ship suffers a bad hit, and Quill dumps Kip and Sandy in a lifeboat. Their mission: warn the Emperor.

The boat lands in a stormy area of Sparta. It takes three days for the storms to dissipate enough for Gareth's search parties to look for them. One finds the seeming remains of Ship, only to get a Mighty Punch from Star-Lord. 

"Oh no, doctor said I wasn't supposed to get punched in the jaw!"

Star-Lord takes the man into Ship and fits him with some hypno-probes. Peter uses the probes to interrogate the man. After an hour, he reveals that Kip and Sandy are not only alive, but they are "guests" of Prince Gareth at his chalet.

Ship provides him with a sword, and off they go. True to the guard's statement, Kip and Sandy are at the chalet, and Gareth's men are not showing them his comic book collection. Star-Lord managed to arrive and frees the two Windholmians. However, Gareth himself has decided to show his face, and he's brought a friend of his.

"We were enjoying a nice game of Space Parcheesi, and then you all decided to make that racket!"

Meet Rrouthk'ar, Sith-Lord of the Argiuan Confederacy. Huh, a Sith-Lord. Does that mean the Jedi are a thing here, too? Never mind. Peter gives an item to Kip and Sandy. He tells them to get it to the Emperor. They run and Star-Lord engages Rrouthk'ar and Gareth in a swordfight. 

During the fight, Star-Lord realizes that Rrouthk'ar was one of the aliens that murdered his mother as a boy. This fills the former astronaut with rage, and that rage empowers him to give the reptilian Sith-Lord a sword to the heart. Now it's down to Peter and Gareth. During the fight, Gareth reveals that he is a proud man and was not content to sit in the shadow of his nephew. The throne was supposed to be his by right! Gareth uses his sword to remove Peter's helmet. When he sees his face, Gareth is shocked.

Peter takes advantage of Gareth's distraction to disarm him. Peter refuses to kill Gareth. After all, he's the Star-Lord, and it has to stand for something. Gareth stabs the man with a poisoned blade, and Peter gives him a sword to the heart. The dying Gareth falls to the mountains below. Peter gets held up by some royal guards. Ship has something to say about that as she appears in the sky. 

Kip and Sandy then arrive with the Emperor. And we have another Star Wars moment.

"Believe me son, it's just as awkward for me. Want to get drunk?"

A few hours passed. Gareth's conspiracy got smashed. Star-Lord got the poison cleaned out of his system and presumably he and the Emperor got really drunk. Not to mention Kip and Sandy got proclaimed as heroes. The Emperor (later it would be established his name is J'son) tells about how he fled to deep space, as like Sandy, he was no fan of court life himself. He was on his way home after being summoned when his ship got damaged and he crashed in the Colorado mountains. This was where he met Meredith Quill. She nursed him back to health and helped him repair his ship. During that time, the two fell in love. As such, they did what people in love did.

She wanted to come with him, but J'son had to let her stay on Earth. It was not only safer for her, but also...she was pregnant with Peter. He would get dragged into court intrigue, and that was the last thing he wanted for his son. Eventually, he called for his uncle Gareth to go pick them up. But instead, he went to Shakati's palace and sent Rrouthk'ar to go get them. The original plan was to take them to Sparta and arrange their deaths at a later time. But the big lizard botched it up by killing Meredith. 

Gareth covered that up by telling J'son that Meredith had died in childbirth and Peter was stillborn. J'son never could love again after that. He never married either. How could he? In his eyes, Meredith Quill was perfect. No other woman in the universe could equal her. But today is still a happy day, as J'son and Peter have gotten to meet for the first time. Peter says that he has no desire for a throne or an empire. Peter Quill is a seeker at heart. He's searching for something. Or maybe he just has a need to see what's out there, beyond the stars. He doesn't need a throne. He has the universe. If J'son needs an heir, Kip will fit fine...as long as Sandy helps keep his head straight. He flies off, J'son lamenting that he can't go with him.

Star-Lord heads back to Ship. She herself is sad that for all her abilities, she cannot be something she truly wants to be: a woman that Peter loves. But they still have each other, and there's still many adventures for them to be had. They got a legend to carve. And carve Star-Lord will. Not so much Ship. Poor Ship gets forgotten.

I enjoyed this issue, although it does have some flaws. For one, Kip and Sandy do hook up rather quick. I do wish this story had more time to give them more interactions. Maybe they should have gotten together at the end. Also, the story establishes Kip has psychic powers, but we don't really see him use them that much. Kip says his talent is a "private" thing, implying that he has reasons to hide it. I wish we learned more about that. Were psychics like him the victims of prejudice on Windholme? I would have liked to have learned. Still, this was a fun story to read, and it is neat to see the early adventures of Star-Lord before the MCU made him a household name.

I also liked the end showing that despite their distance, both Peter and J'son are at heart, men who desire freedom and the stars. I did like that J'son and Peter parted on good terms. I do want to see them interact some more. 

John Byrne and Terry Austin's pencils and inks are great. The linework is so clean and it's a treat for the eyes.  

If you want to read this story for yourself, I recommend tracking down the 2014 trade paperback Star-Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy. It collects Star-Lord's original 1970s and 1980s adventures, as well as the 1996 miniseries that introduced the Sinjin Quarrel incarnation of Star-Lord. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! If you like what I write and want to give this blog some additional support, please make a donation to my Ko-fi! See you next time!

Juneteenth

 Today is Juneteenth!

What is Juneteenth, you may ask? Well, Juneteenth is a portmanteau of "June Nineteenth". The purpose is to celebrate the end of slavery in the United States.

"But wait!" You may ask yourself? "Didn't slavery end in 1863 thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation"? Well, sort of. You see, said Proclamation did play a major role in the end of slavery in the United States. However, the Proclamation only applied to states that were in the Confederacy. As a result, slavery was still legal in states that never seceded from the Union. It would not be until the 13th Amendment's ratification in 1865 that slavery was truly ended in the US.

So, what does that have to do with Juneteenth? Well, on this date in 1865, Major General Gordon Granger ordered that the Proclamation be enforced in Texas. Often celebrated on the third Saturday in June, the day is celebrated with cookouts, family get-togethers, and education of African-American culture. Early celebrations were held at churches due to African-Americans being barred from public facilities.

Over the 20th century, celebrations would decline due to the instatement of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. African-Americans could still continue to celebrate in Texas. In the late 1970s, Texas would be the first state to enshrine Juneteenth as a state holiday. Juneteenth celebrations would make a comeback in the 1980s. On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden would sign the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, making it a federal holiday, the first new one since Martin Luther King Day in 1986.

If you want to learn more about this holiday, you can read about it here and here. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! If you like what I write and want to give my blog some additional support, please make a donation to my Ko-fi! See you next time!