Salutations CP Lunch and Learn community. It’s been a bit of time but we are back and have some grand adventures ahead of us.

As always, I spent most of my break getting lost in rabbit holes and tugging on strings. On one such trip, I happen to stumble on something that I parked in the “I’ll get back to this later” portion of my mind. As I was digging into the Emancipation Proclamation, I came across stories about “Hiring Day” or sometimes known as “Heartbreak Day” and I realized it was “later.” For many Black decedents of enslaved people in this country, there are certain traditions that take place on New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s Day. The ties to these practices hold a lot of joy and also hold a lot of pain and go back hundreds of years.

For our first session of the year, we’re going to take a look at how slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, and practices held today show the connectivity of the past to the present and see how that touches a family here in western Washington.

Welcome back, L&L. Let’s see what we uncover together.

Register in advance for this session:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwoce2gqzMuGtTpoiPgu0euhtlXYNnM2JWQ

Origins of “Hiring Day”:

• https://time.com/5750833/new-years-day-slavery-history/

• https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/historical-legacy-watch-night

• https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-ugly-history-of-new-years-is-too-real-for-white-republicans

A WA state connection:

• https://theundefeated.com/features/discovering-the-meaning-behind-my-familys-new-years-day-traditions/amp/