You could easily whittle down the good tracks to one CDR once you own it.

Sleep Around is faaantastic!

ye i heard emale and joint2joint r gud im still listenin

It's massive, but there are great songs on this CD.

I love ALL of CD 1, MOST of CD's 2 and 3.

I think this is the first time that Prince covered
any other artists songs on his CD, and he rocked them
out!!

One Of Us kicks a$$!

jessyMD32781 said:

3 CD Set...

all great! ...
five stars...
smile... 8)

Disc two is worth the price of all the other three, one word, genius.

[color=RED:321a3915b9:76f8b1ca66]Emancipation?...

DO YOU KNOW WHAT IS JUNETEENTH IS?


Juneteenth or June 19, 1865, is considered the date when the last slaves in America were freed. Although the rumors of freedom were widespread prior to this, actual emancipation did not come until General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas and issued General Order No. 3, on June 19, almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.


BUT DIDN'T THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION FREE THE ENSLAVED?


President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, notifying the states in rebellion against the Union that if they did not cease their rebellion and return to the Union by January 1, 1863, he would declare their slaves forever free. Neeedless to say, the proclamation was ignored by those states that seceded from the Union. Futhermore, the proclamation did not apply to those slave-holding states that did not rebel against the Union. As a result about 8000,000 slaves were unaffected by the provisions of the proclamation. It would take a civil war to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to formally outlaw slavery in the United States.


WHEN IS JUNETEENTH CELEBRATED?


Annually, on June 19, in more than 200 cities in the United States. Texas (and Oklahoma) is the only state that has made Juneteenth a legal holiday. Some cities sponsor week-long celebrations, culminating on June 19, while others hold shorter celebrations.


WHY IS JUNETEENTH CELEBRATED?


It symbolizes the end of slavery. Juneteenth has come to symbolize for many African-Americans what the fourth of July symbolizes for all Americans -- freedom. It serves as a historical milestone reminding Amricans of the triumph of the human spirit over the cruelty of slavery. It honors those African-Americans ancestors who survived the inhumane institution of bondage, as well as demonstrating pride in the marvelous legacy of resistance and perserverance they left us.


WHY NOT JUST CELEBRATE THE FOURTH OF JULY LIKE OTHER AMERICANS?


Blacks do celebrate the Fourth of July in honor of American Independence Day, but history reminds us that blacks were still enslaved when the United States obtained its independence.


WHY WERE SLAVES IN TEXAS THE LAST TO KNOW THAT THEY WERE FREE?


During the Civil War, Texas did not experience any significant invasion by Union forces. Although the Union army made several attempts to invade Texas, they were thwarted by Confererate troops. As a result, slavery in Texas continued to thrive. In fact, because slavery in Texas experienced such a minor interruption in its operation, many slave owners from other slave-holding states brought their slaves to Texas to wait out the war. News of the emancipation was suppressed due to the overwhelming influence of the slave owners.


The Meaning of Juneteenth -- Freedom

When blacks in Texas heard the news, they alternately sang, danced and prayed. There was much rejoicing and jubilation that their life long prayers had finally been answered. Many of the slaves left their masters immediately upon being freed, in search of family members, economic opportunities or simply because they could. They left with nothing but the clothes on their backs and hope in their hearts. Oh, freedom!


"When my oldest brother heard we were free, he gave a whoop, ran, and jumped a high fence, and told mammy good-bye. Then he grabbed me up and hugged and kissed me and said, "Brother is gone, don't expect you'll ever see me any more," I don't know where he went, but I never did see him again." -- Susan Ross


Freedom meant more than the right to travel freely. It meant the right to name one's self and many freedmen gave themselves new names (What's your family name?). County courthouses were overcrowded as blacks applied for licenses to legalize their marriages. Emancipation allowed ex-slaves the right to assemble and openly worship as they saw fit. As a result, a number of social and community organizations were formed, many originating from the church. Freedom implied that for the first time, United States laws protected the rights of blacks. There was a run on educational primers as freed men and woman sought the education that had for so long been denied them. The Bureau of Refuges, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was founded by Congress in March 1865 to provide relief services for former slaves. Schools were established and joined churches as centers of the newly-freed communities. The promise of emancipation gave freedmen optimism for the future; few realized slavery's bitter legacy was just beginning to unfold and that equality was to remain an elusive dream. Oh freedom!


At the beginning of Reconstruction, the period immediately following the end of the Civil War, rumors were rampant that every freedman would be given forty acres and a mule. Ex-slaves petitioned for land and, with federal troops stationed throughout the South to protect their rights, looked forward to participating in American society as free citizens. In some cases ex-slaves were successful in obtaining land. Land grants by Congress allowed several states to establish black colleges.


The optimism was short-lived, however, and soon replaced by a betrayal so soul shattering blacks questioned whether the United States was serious about granting them their freedom. Ex-slaves found for the most part, that despite th Freedman's Bureau, they were left to fend for themselves. The abject poverty and the racism that maintained it, prohibited any hope for assimilated into American society. In Texas, the editor of the Harrison Flag newspaper denounced as "treasonable" the sale of land to blacks. The Texas Homestead Act, passed during Reconstruction, granted up to 160 acres of free land to white persons only. The Texas legislature in 1866 passed a new set of black codes that attempted to reverse the limited gains blacks had been granted.


Ex-slaves entered freedom under the worst possible conditions. Most were turned loose penniless and homeless, with only the clothes on their back. Ex-slaves were, as Frederick Douglas said "free, without roofs to cover them, or bread to eat, or land to cultivate, and as a consequence died in such numbers as to awaken the hope of their enemies that they would soon disappear."


Many white Texans disdained black freedom and this utter contempt guaranteed the price of freedom for many would be unaffordable. The sharecropping system that emerged in Texas and all over the deep South kept many blacks from starving, but had little to distinguish it from the slave life blacks thought they had escaped. This was the other side of emancipation where high expectations gave way to heart-crushing disillusionment.


By 1877, the end of Reconstruction, the North had abandoned black Americans to the will of southern whites, who through violence, racial discrimination and Jim Crow laws succeeded in disenfranchising them, resulting in more than 100 years of oppression. It's not surprising that blacks turned to the only institution that gave them hope--the church.


CHURCH


From the establishment of the first black church in America, throughout slavery and beyond, the church has been the foundation of the black community. During the horrific days of slavery it provided relief and nourishment for the soul with its promise of a better life after death. The church gave the slave dignity and assured him he was equal in the eyes of God. Despite his earthly condition he was loved and valued as a child of God no matter how difficult his burden became or unbearable his suffering was, Jesus, who too suffered, prepared a place of rest for him when his time was up on earth. It was this religious faith that sustained the slave and enabled him to endure his bondage.


The slave owner was able to observe a glimpse of this faith as he heard the incredible music that seemed to come out of the slave's soul while toiling in the field. If the slave owner had ventured into a slave church, his strong defense of slavery would no doubt have been weakened. He would have seen the people he considered inferior and sub-human without the defensive masks they wore in the fields; in their churches, enslaved men and woman displayed a dignity and stateliness that survived the slave owner's dehuminizing oppression.


The church was more than a safe house. It served as a launching pad for black leadership and was involved early on in working for liberation. Many free blacks in northern churches participated in the Underground Railroad, raised money for freedmen after the Civil War, and helped keep the black community intact.


The importance of the black church can not be overstated. It was, and perhaps still is, the single most important institution in the black community. It permitted self-expression and supported creativity at a time when it could have meant death. An example is found in the spirituals, gospel and other forms of music that helped blacks explain and endure their sojourn in America. Blacks were able to use their churches to hone organization and leadership skills useful in the economic, social and political development of their community. It's no accident that Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson and a host of other civil rights leaders got their start through the black church.


Therefore it is not surprising the black church has always played a pivitol role in keeping alive the meaning of Juneteenth. Religion has always been at the root of the observance of this holiday, which is ironic, considering it is a holiday born out of an institution so far removed from Christian ideals--slavery.


The Black Church provided a haven from the daily oppression slaves faced, but after freedom it was also the center of social activities including the sponsorship of the annual Juneteenth Celebration.


TRADITIONAL PRAYER


The deep spiritual faith of the enslaved is reflected in the traditional prayer below. Similiar prayers are often recited in Juneteenth celebrations.


Father, I stretch my hand to thee--for no other help I know. Oh my rose of Sharon, my shelter in the time of storm. My prince of peace, my hope in this harsh land. We bow before you this morning to thank you for watching over us and taking care of us. This morning you touched us and brought us out of the land of slumber, gave us another day--thank you Jesus. We realize that many that talked as we now talked, this morning when their names were called, they failed to answer. Their voices were hushed up in death. Their souls had taken a flight and gone back to the God that gave it, but not so with us. We are thankful the sheet we covered with, was not our winding sheet, and the bed we slept on was not our cooling board. You spared us and gave us one more chance to pray. And Father, before we go further, we want to pause and thank you for forgiving our sins. Forgive all our wrong doings. We don't deserve it, but you lengthened out the brickly threads of our lives and gave us another chance to pray, and Lord for this we thank you... Now Lord, when I've come to the end of my journey, when praying days are done and time for me shall be no more; when these knees have bowed for the last time, when I too, like all others must come in off the battlefield of life, when I'm through being 'buked and scorned, I pray for a home in glory.

When I come down to the river of Jordan, hold the river still and let your servant cross over during a calm down. Father, I'll be looking for that land where Job said the wicked would cease from troubling us and our weary souls would be at rest; over there where a thousand years is but a day in eternity, where I'll meet with loved ones and where I can sing praises to thee; and we can say with the saints of old, Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God almighty, I am free at last. Your servants prayer for Christ sake. Amen!


-- traditional with additions from Reverend Wallace Evans


LEGACY OF SLAVERY


The fact that it took a Civil War to forcibly put an end to slavery left a bitter legacy that continues to divide American society. Slavery so bankrupted slave owners' sense of right and wrong that they were willing to die to defend that lifestyle. A slave-holding minority morally corrupted a nation, and this legacy still haunts the country.

According to historian John Hope Franklin, "the Founding Fathers (by allowing slavery) set the stage for every succeeding generation of Americans to apologize, compromise and temporize on those principles of liberty that were supposed to be the very foundation of our system of government and way of life...that is why this nation tolerated and indeed, nurtured the cultivation of racism that has been as insidious as it has been pervasive."


Professor Franklin asks, "how could the colonists make (such) distinctions in their revolutionary philosophy? They either meant that all men were created equal or they did not mean it at all. They either meant that every man was entitled to life, liberty, and the purssuit of happiness, or they did not mean it at all...Patrick Henry, who had cried, 'Give me liberty or give me death', admitted that slavery was 'repugnant to humanity', but (obviously) not terribly repugnant, for he continued to hold blacks in bondage. So did George Washington and Thomas Jefferson..."


This blatant hypocrisy poisoned both religion and the law. Every institution at the slave-holder's disposal was used to justify slavery. Instead of the slave-owner being considered inhumane, the people he enslaved were. The legacy of racism has grown into perhaps the greatest internal threat that this country faces. John Hope Franklin aptly put it when he wrote that "slavery weakened America's moral authority."


It's amazing that despite living under the most inhumane conditions known to humankind, blacks contributed everything from agricultural inventions, to medical breakthroughs, to music. Enslaved artisans crafted incredible sculptures, designed beautiful buildings and helped build a nation. Blacks preserved a culture and succeeded in passing down a legacy of music, language, food, religion and a lesson in survival. We'll never know how many scientists, engineers, doctors and artists were lost on the trip over on the slave ships or after they arrived.


Slavery taught America another lesson, one that it too often ignores. Blacks and whites worked together to create an anti-slavery movement that ultimately succeeded. Later they fought and died together to force an end of slavery. Blacks and whites have worked throughout the nation's history for social justice. This lesson of cooperation must never be forgotten.


While the painful side of slavery makes it difficult for many blacks to celebrate Juneteenth, it is the positive legacy of perseverance and cooperation that makes it impossible for others to ignore.


WHY WE CELEBRATE


J -- Juneteenth represents the joy of freedom--the chance for a new beginning.


U -- Unless we expose the truth about the African-American slave experience, Americans won't be truly free.


N -- Never must we forget our ancestors' endurance of one of the worst slave experiences in human history.


E -- Every American has benefitted from the wealth blacks created through over 200 years of free labor and Juneteenth allows us to acknowledge that debt.


T -- To encourage every former slave-holding state to follow Texas' (and Oklahoma's) example and make Juneteenth a state holiday.


E -- Everyday in america, blacks are reminded of the legacy of slavery. Juneteenth counters that by reminding us of the promise of deliverance.


E -- Even on the journey to discover who we are, Juneteenth allows us to reflect on where we've been, where we're at and where we're going as a people.


N -- Never give up hope is the legacy our enslaved ancestors left. It was this legacy that produced black heroism in the Civil War and helped launch the modern civil rights era. It is this legacy we celebrate.


T -- To proclaim for all the world to hear, that human rights must never again become subservient to property rights.


H -- History books have only told a small part of the story; Juneteenth gives us a chance to set the record straight.


FREEDOM IS ALWAYS WORTH CELEBRATING!

Now you know what Emancipation means! The Celebration of life and Freedom...! class over...
[This message was edited Sat Mar 8 3:36:06 PST 2003 by RiccoTheArtist]

RiccoTheArtist, This is excellent! Thanks for posting it.

Freedom for all oppressed groups and individuals in the entire world.

Native Americans are far behind the prosperity and well-being that they deserve.

Respect to all people.

Peace.

Oh, and the Emancipation 3-CD Set is excellent too!!