Dear women's representation enthusiasts,

The countdown to the Seneca Falls Revisited virtual conference celebrating the centennial of suffrage continues this week with blogs by Maura Reilly about the speakers - see below - and about Juneteenth which celebrates the official end of slavery in the United States. Maura writes in her blog this week:

On June 19th 1865, Major General Gordon Granger led Union soldiers into Galveston Texas and brought with him the news of the end of the Civil War and the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. Two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and formally ended slavery in the United States, the legal end of slavery was finally upheld across the country. A year following Granger’s proclamation, the anniversary of what had become known as Juneteenth took place for the first time. The Juneteenth celebration which focused on the community of the formerly enslaved peoples in Texas continued to spread and grow over the following years.