Today is Juneteenth, the unofficial holiday that marks the day in 1865 — which happened to have been two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomatox — that slaves in Galveston, Tex., finally got the word that they were free. Celebrations ensued, then and more than 100 years later. I’ve never actually attended a Juneteenth celebration — my family and friends must have never been into it — but across the country, and particularly in Texas, the day (or the weekend before or after the day) is a cause for huge cookouts and parades that are defining events in the lives of many African Americans.

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TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE IS ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE Maude Paulin, an ex-middle school teacher from South Florida, was just sentenced to more than 7 years in prison for enslaving a Haitian girl in her home for years. Paulin beat the girl, deprived her of schooling, and forced her to work 15 hours a day from the time she brought then-14-year-old Simone Celestin to the U.S. from a Haitian orphanage in 1999 until she escaped in 2005. It is estimated that there are at least 17,500 Haitian children, known as “restaveks,” brought to the U.S. each year and forced into involuntary servitude. “I love Simone with all my heart,” Paulin told Senior U.S. District Judge Jose A. Gonzalez Jr. at a sentencing hearing. “I regret it. I blame myself.” [AP]

Not to be outdone by CNN and its new documentary series about being black in America, MSNBC is airing a documentary Friday called Meeting David Wilson. It’s about a young black man named David Wilson who, in the course of researching his family’s history, finds the descendant of the white family that owned his ancestors. The man’s name is also David Wilson.

The documentary airs Friday at 9pm, and it will be followed by a 90-minute “conversation” about race moderated by Brian Williams.

Florida is terribly sorry for that unfortunate slavery issue in America’s past. Legislators there said so themselves. The Sunshine State is the fifth state — North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey beat it to the punch — to formally apologize for slavery. It was a trend two states ago. Now it’s a movement.

Florida’s history with slavery is unusual. Its roots stretch back to the settlement of St. Augustine in 1565, and slaves here took part in a wide array of industries, including cattle ranching in central Florida and sugar cane harvests in Tampa… Some of this history was recounted before the Legislature, and was included in the resolution. It was enough to draw clear sobs from Senator Arthenia L. Joyner, Democrat of Tampa. The governor said such emotions were understandable.

So Florida’s sorry. Does that heal race relations any? Not really. But as long as the legislature feels good…

Next up, Florida should apologize for screwing their residents out of a primary vote. [NYT]

Louisiana tourism officials today revealed the first 26 sites on their “African American Heritage Trail,” which spans from New Orleans to the state’s northern region. Travelers who follow the Trail will encounter notable locations in black history, including plantations and places integral in the creation of jazz. “The new trail makes the entire state a museum,” Lt Governor Mitch Landrieu said. No word yet as to when the path will be extended to Houston…and Little Rock and…St Paul?

The big G.W. is on a six-day African tour, during which he’ll visit a number of countries, including Benin, Liberia, and Ghana. Edward Ball from The Root writes that now is as good of a time as any for Bush to speak about slavery, particularly given his personal history with America’s “peculiar institution.” Plus, you know, Black History Month and all.

A new book by Jacob Weisberg, The Bush Tragedy, mentions in passing that at one time some of the president’s family owned slaves. Weisberg doesn’t dwell on the links between the White House and the antebellum past except to say the Bush clan’s story is a long-held “family secret…”

The skeletal facts surfaced in April 2007, when an amateur historian named Robert Hughes published his research in the IllinoisTimes, a small paper out of Springfield. Hughes found census records showing that during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, in Cecil County, Maryland, five households of the Walker family, the president’s ancestors via his father’s mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, had been slaveholding farmers. The evidence is simple but persuasive: genealogies of the Bush family match up with census data that counted farmers who used enslaved workers. With this, the president joins perhaps fifteen million living white Americans who trace their roots to the long-gone master class.

Bush has to talk about slavery now? I feel like it already took so much for him to mention that it’s not nice to hang nooses.

A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!

William Wells Brown was born a slave in Kentucky in 1815. According to legend, he’s the grandson of Daniel Boone. As a boy working on a steamboat in the Mississippi River, Brown escaped to Canada, where he made a living as a steward on a ship that sailed the Great Lakes. During this time, he taught himself to read and write, married a free black woman, and became active in th Underground Railroad.

Through his work as an abolitionist, he became a renowned public speaker and a writer. He published several works — including an autobiography called The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave and Three Years in Europe, a travel memoir. With his 1853 novel, Clotel (or President’s Daughter), which was based on the love affair of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson and published in England, he became and became the first African American to publish a novel. He was also the first African American to publish a play. He died in Massachusetts in 1884.

This concludes your daily dose of BHM.

A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!

On this day 215 years ago, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793, which made it illegal for anyone to assist a runaway slave and set up a system by which runaway slaves could be seized, even in states that did not allow slavery, and returned to their masters. Although slaves already had no constitutional rights, the law stripped freed slaves of their rights, too, and they were often forbidden from showing proof of their freedom in court. By passing the law, congress made runaway slaves and their children fugitives for life. The Fugitive Slave Law prompted the development of the Underground Railroad.

This concludes your daily dose of BHM.

A daily Black History Month fact that has nothing to do with George Washington Carver, MLK, Jr., or Harriet Tubman. Promise!
Here’s one South Carolinian who would no doubt be thrilled that in 2008, the people in his state have yet to relinquish the Confederate flag. Robert Smalls was born a slave in 1839, and as an adult, who worked on a Confederate steamer based out of the Charleston Harbor called the Planter. Once the war started, Smalls hatched a plan to take over the Steamer with a group of 12 other slaves. On the morning of May 13, 1862, Smalls smuggled his wife and children aboard the ship and took command with the rest of his crew. They waved the Confederate Flag until they reached the Union waters, where they turned the ship over as contraband. Smalls and his crew were honored by Lincoln. The former slave became became a captain in the U.S. Navy, and officially commanded the Planter throughout the Civil War.

During Reconstruction, Smalls returned to South Carolina and served in the state senate from 1868-1870. In 1875 he was election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for five terms and fought for equal travel accommodations for blacks and for the rights of children of mixed race.

He died in 1916.

This concludes your daily does of BHM.

*Feel free to send me your black history month suggestions at lauren AT stereohyped.com. Thanks!

• I was really expecting Janet to come harder than this. [DM]

• America’s Next Top Model Even Though She Was Already A Model Before The Show covers Seventeen. [NB]

• New Jersey officially says sorry to the slaves. Unfortunately, the slaves aren’t really in a position to accept the apology. [CNN]

• Yes, Eminem still exists. We know this because he was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia. He’s recovering and apparently weighs over 200 lbs. [MTV]

• New Hampshire’s running out of ballots … on the Democrat side. Go figure. [UB]

• All that fur wearing rarely goes unnoticed these days. [Bossip]