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CREATED:20211221T233900Z
DESCRIPTION:Slavery in California remains an open secret.  Above today's Old Sacramento 
 Visitor's Center is where our California Supreme Court met and allowed the 
 auction of enslaved people of African Descent, a block away here in Old 
 Sacramento; hidden by design, an open secret, fundamental to "Racism" a 
 Public Health Crisis declared by 2020 Sacramento County Board of 
 Supervisors, solitions await cognition of the source.  \n\nToday, we are 
 officially and actively apart of the National Underground Railroad Network 
 to Freedom, 1840-1875, soon come alive here in the streets of Old 
 Sacramento.\n\nOur 2021 Freedom's Eve/Old Sacramento Kwanzaa is nothing 
 new, however if Executive Order #13985 and #BuildBackBetter are real, then 
 maybe a positive new way forward is at hand.  \nReady and Forward.\n\nWatch 
 Night Tonight\nBy Jenice Armstrong \n\nAFTER Philadelphia attorney Michael 
 Coard stopped partying on New Year's Eve, he started attending New Year's 
 Eve Watch Night services at area churches.\n\nBut no matter how many times 
 he went, Coard, a criminal defense lawyer, could never rid himself of 
 feeling that something was missing from Watch Night, a church service in 
 many black congregations that often begins about 7 p.m. on Dec. 31 and 
 lasts until shortly after midnight.\n\nEach service he would attend, he 
 found himself thinking that there had to be more to Watch Night. But what 
 was it? Two years ago, Coard was at a Watch Night service at a West Philly 
 church when he felt himself growingly annoyed by the preacher's 
 fire-and-brimstone sermon and his appeal to visitors to join the 
 congregation in order to be saved.\n\n"I was really frustrated. I was 
 fuming in my frustration," recalled Coard, who likes to call himself "Nat 
 Turner with a law degree."\n\n"I said, 'Mike, you have to stop whining 
 about what somebody hasn't done.' "\n\nThat year marked the end to his 
 bouncing around at different New Year's Eve services. It also was the 
 beginning of his exploration into the history of Watch Night - a term many 
 people have heard but may not know the historical origins of. Legend has it 
 that black slaves sat up the night of Dec. 31, 1862, waiting to be set free 
 from slavery as decreed by President Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation 
 Proclamation. It is believed that they began gathering early in the evening 
 on that first Freedom's Eve, as it came to be known, to wait for the moment 
 when they'd no longer be enslaved. It's also believed that blacks were 
 inclined toward waiting up on the last night of the year out of fear of 
 being sold into slavery to settle debts from the previous 12 
 months.\n\nHowever it came to be, the experience of waiting up to welcome 
 in the new year became known as Watch Night. According to the Internet site 
 Snopes.com, the practice isn't restricted to America. And it didn't happen 
 here first. The site says that Watch Night dates back to the 1700s and the 
 Moravians, who lived in what's now the Czech Republic. It later was adopted 
 by John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church.\n\nOver the years, though, 
 black churches have embraced it. Congregants gather to give thanks for the 
 blessings of the previous year and ask for more in the future. Greater 
 Exodus Baptist Church, on North Broad Street, expects upward of 1,000 
 people at its program, which starts at 8:30 tonight.\n\nCoard's group, the 
 Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, was organized in 2001 to ensure that 
 George Washington's slaves who worked at the Presidents House weren't 
 ignored. The coalition will sponsor a Watch Night with an emphasis on black 
 cultural traditions. It will begin with ancestral libations and end with a 
 historical lecture. The whole event will last just an hour - a smart move 
 since attendees may want to go to New Year's Eve parties or church services 
 afterwards.\n\n"The purpose is to enlighten African-Americans," Coard told 
 me earlier this week. "Far too often, we hear about stuff pertaining to our 
 history but we don't understand it." His research opened his eyes. "Every 
 Watch Night I've gone to, nobody ever mentioned the term Freedom's Eve. 
 They just called it Watch Night. I'm kind of glad that I was frustrated. If 
 I hadn't been frustrated, I wouldn't have done this."\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/12/21/18846893.php
SUMMARY:2021 Old Sacramento Freedom's Eve / Kwanzaa Celebration
LOCATION:Old Sacramento Visitors Center 
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/12/21/18846893.php
DTSTART:20211231T200000Z
DTEND:20211231T220000Z
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