200K Black men fought in the Civil War. Some lawmakers want to give them the Congressional Gold Meda

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Medal.


On Christmas Eve 1862, Confederate President Jefferson Davis declared that any “negro slave” caught while fighting for the Union would be returned to the state from which he escaped.

Despite the risk of being sold into slavery as captured prisoners of war, regardless of whether they had been free, roughly 200,000 Black men enlisted in the Union Army and Navy, fighting for a country that at the time did not even consider them citizens.

Now, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are introducing a bill seeking to award all of them a Congressional Gold Medal posthumously in recognition of their contributions to preserving the Union and liberating — in many cases — their own family members from enslavement.

“All I can say is: What took us so long?” Norton said in an interview. “But since it’s taken us, what is it, 150 years after the Civil War, Black History Month is a good time for the House and the Senate to honor these soldiers and sailors, 200,000 of them, who served in the Civil War.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/05/civil-war-black-soldiers-gold-medal/

[VarryOn]

1. Is this the same as the Congressional Medal of Honor? Nt

[qazplm135]

2. nope

completely different.

[SharonClark]

3. Just award it to all Union soldiers and piss

off the confederacy-lovers.

[brush]

4. Nah, that's too much like "all lives matter" instead of...

"Black lives matter."

The medal is for Black soldiers specifically who risked being cast back into enslavement to fight for the Union.