It’s the 148th Juneteenth–the day commemorating the final liberation of slaves in Texas on June 19, 1865, and thus the long-delayed implementation of the Emancipation Proclamation. Here’s Shirley Verrett performing “No More Slavery Chains For Me.”

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Ed Kilgore is a political columnist for New York Magazine; a longtime contributor to the Washington Monthly; and a former policy adviser to three governors and a U.S. senator from his home state of Georgia.