Italian Freedom Day  June 23, 1874  "J23"

J-23 -  A blend of the words June and 23rd honors the end of slavery in the United States particluarly in New York City. Celebrated on June 23, this day marks the day in 1874 that the Padrone Act was Passed in Washington DC and informed the Italian slaves there that Italian and Sicilian Slavery had ended and had been abolished. It took 9 years after the Civil War to abolish slavery with our nations first Anti-Human Trafficking Law to protect Italians and Sicilians from further slavery in the Northern States including New York City and Boston.

June 23, 1874: Congress enacts The Padrone statute "to prevent the practice of enslaving, buying, selling, or using Italian children" as street musicians and urchins. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=6&smtID=4

But, woefully, the freedom of Italians and Sicilians was not granted until almost eleven and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Italian Freedom day 146 year history holds bold meaning in the fight for liberation today of all ethnic minorities from EurAsia.

Padrone Act of June 23, 1874, ch. 464, § 1, 18 Stat. 251 (1874). The Padrone statute stated:[W]hoever shall knowingly and wilfully bring into the United States ... any person
inveigled or forcibly kidnapped in any other country, with intent to hold such person... in confinement or to any involuntary service, ... and whoever shall knowingly
and wilfully sell, or cause to be sold, into any condition of involuntary servitude, any other person so sold and bought, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and ... be imprisoned for a term not exceeding five years and pay a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars. Id. The definition of "inveigle" means to "seduce, allure, entice, [or] wheedle"; in other words, the use of fraud or deceit. N. WEBsTER, A ColmtPDious DICIONARY OF Tim ENGLUS LANGuAGE 164 (Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin; New Haven: Increase Cooke, 1806). Chapter 464 (the Padrone statute) was repealed by Act of March 4, 1909, ch. 321, § 341, 35 Stat. 1153-54 (1909), and subsequently reenacted as Act of March 4, 1909, ch. 321, § 271, 35 Stat. 1139 (1909).