In July of 1640, a Black indentured servant, John Punch, tried to escape his servitude in Virginia by running away to Maryland with two white indentured servants. When they were caught, the white men were sentenced to longer indentures while John Punch’s sentence was a lifetime of servitude. This was officially the first slave in what is now the United States and this is also the first time the distinction had been made legally between Blacks and whites in this country.
In December of 1865, the 13th Amendment was finally ratified by the requisite number of states to abolish slavery.
You could argue that slavery never officially ended, since the language of the 13th Amendment includes the stipulation that slavery is still legal as punishment of a crime, which is partly the basis of our penal system. However, for Black people as a whole, we could no longer be enslaved for simply existing in our skin.
In December of this year, we will celebrate 150 years since the ratification of the 13th Amendment. There were 225 years and 5 months between John Punch’s sentence of slavery and the end of slavery in 1865. May of 2091 will finally bring us past the midpoint, where we have been “free” for as long as we were enslaved in this country. We have a long way to go in the next 76 years, and America needs to get it together quick.
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