How do we celebrate JUNETEENTH? Is it just another summer holiday for fireworks, picnics, and barbecue? Is it a holiday that we all share? Do we celebrate it differently in the south than in the north? Do whites celebrate it differently than Blacks? Or is this the holiday for unity to recognize white domination? Is it a bigger holiday in Texas than it is elsewhere? Do we have a unified celebration where each city/state does the same thing?
What are we celebrating? Is it freedom, or is it slavery? I was watching TV with my century-old mother. And she read the crawl announcing Juneteenth as a holiday. She said, “Are we celebrating slavery now?” I didn’t know how quite to answer or have the conversation. Her next question was, “So what will you do to celebrate?” Again I was stumped.
So many people don’t even know or appreciate the holiday. President Abraham Lincoln, with the Emancipation Proclamation, freed the slaves on January 1, 1863. Southern slaves recognized freedom on September 22, Jan 1, August 1, April 6, and November 1. However, the 250,000 slaves in Texas did not receive the news until two years later, on June 19.
The story of Juneteenth is being mistold, even by the news media. State Representative LaShawn Ford (D-8th District) introduced the bill in the State of Illinois, making Juneteenth a state holiday. He recalls the actual history of the holiday.
“We have to start by going back to the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation was an order by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to free those enslaved in 10 states still in rebellion (excluding some specific counties in Virginia and Louisiana) on January 1, 1863. To quote the Proclamation’s lofty language: “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free”. It applied to those enslaved in the states still in rebellion in 1863 during the American Civil War. However, it did not actually immediately free people enslaved in those states, because these areas were still controlled by the Confederacy.
Those enslaved within the Confederacy were freed with the Emancipation Proclamation, but slave owners continued to enslave people in Texas and other parts of the Confederacy. This was even after the Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, and after the last battle was fought at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 13, 1865.
Juneteenth’s commemoration is on the anniversary date of the June 19, 1865, announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army General Gordon Granger, proclaiming and enforcing the freedom of enslaved people in Texas, which was the last state of the Confederacy with institutional slavery. Ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865, would finally make slavery illegal in all parts of the United States, including areas not initially covered by the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Now that our country has made Juneteenth a national holiday, we have recognition of the harms of our country’s original sin against Black people. The Juneteenth holiday should be a day of reflection. “
President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a legal holiday for all Americans with legislation in 2021. As he signed, I wondered why didn’t the real Black President take notice.
So much of Black history has been ignored, suppressed, denied, or covered up, and here is yet another example. The Texas slaves were held captive two years longer than others. So, if and when reparation comes, that should mean they receive an additional payment for the last two years. The Day has been popularized as Emancipation Day, Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, and Black Independence Day.
My mother’s questions have stuck with me, even now as we celebrate July 4th, Independence Day, 1776. So in a 17-day window, we celebrate or observe the freedom of enslavement and then two weeks later we celebrate Freedom of the country. I am confused and perplexed.
So what comes first, the country or the enslaved? There is a 90-year gap in the “freedoms” Did anyone notice? The way the celebration is formatted slaves freedom first and then the country. But history is wrong. Right?
Juneteenth is a brand new American holiday and only the second to be recognized for Black Americans over a 400 plus period. And Juneteenth is the only one that is generic, not for a person. We will shape it in many ways, as we discover it and create it.
So now we have two dates to memorialize and celebrate American freedoms. Both of them yet to be realized.
