Turn Up For Juneteenth

Question:  What is Juneteenth?

Answer:  Juneteenth is an American holiday that commemorates the June 19, 1865 announcement of the abolition of slavery in the state of Texas – after the remaining slaves in the former Confederate States of America were emancipated. Its name is a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth”, hence the date of its celebration. This is also known as Black Independence Day, Emancipation Day, and Freedom Day.

Q:  What do we do on this date?

A:  In some locales, a public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation and the singing of such great canonical classics as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and the readings of such notables as Stamps’ very own Maya Angelou and Ralph Bunche, for whom Gravel Hill (the only place in Saline County black people could live historically) is renamed. Of course, we have our celebrations – brothers in our Obama t-shirts smoking, eating, and peddling turkey legs, street fairs, parades, and so forth.

Q:  Why do we have to celebrate Juneteenth? Don’t they have enough holidays already?

A:  I’ve been asked this one. Juneteenth is not a national holiday – or in much of the country save Texas and a few others, a state holiday since the death of Jim Crow. To even insinuate that “they” have enough holidays already smacks of a condescending racism disguised as paternalism, plain and simple. Black people created Memorial Day only for it to be appropriated for those we gave their all during international conflicts only to be subjugated as subhuman upon returning to domestic soil.

During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862 with an effective date of January 1, 1863 declaring all enslaved persons in the Confederate States of America in rebellion and not in Union hands were to be freed. This excluded the five border states – Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and the counties which broke away from Virginia to form West Virginia – as well as the Union-occupied state of Tennessee; lower Louisiana; and southeast Virginia. This does not absolve the Northern states for they considered freedmen second-class citizens. Since Texas was more isolated geographically [keep in mind there was no highway system to speak of in the 1860s] and it was not a battleground state, planters and slaveholders brought their people into the Lone Star State to evade the fighting thereby increasing the state’s population significantly.

Lincoln’s prime objective was not to free the slaves as much as it was to preserve the Union at all costs. This is a #littleknownblackhistoryfact we all must acknowledge and use as a buffer for the common GOP talking point that their party’s standard bearer freed the slaves not as a benevolent gesture as much in keeping the United States united. Had he had his way, America would have been an all-white entity not unlike Scandinavia as all remaining black slaves and freedmen would have been deported to the home continent without a trace of self-identity.  

Two years later on April 9, 1865, the news of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox finally trickled down to Texas, and the Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not surrender until June 2. On June 18, Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the federal government. The following day, Granger read aloud the contents of “General Order No. 3” announcing the total emancipation of those held as slaves.

They were free to go but were advised to keep quiet and continue working locally – for wages this time.

One caveat came of this as it became a precursor to the Black Codes enacted throughout the South:  They will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere. Does that sound familiar?

Although this date is sometimes referred to the “traditional end of slavery in Texas” it was given legal status in a series of Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874.

Q: Who celebrates Juneteenth?

A: Beyond the obvious black people everywhere native and expatriates alike, Texas has made it a partial staffing holiday in 1980 naming it “Emancipation Day in Texas”. However, state government offices will continue to function albeit in a skeleton-crew capacity. Elsewhere, Juneteenth is a ceremonial observance with only Hawaii, Montana, North and South Dakota not recognizing the date.

The first known celebration occurred in the 1870s when a group of former slaves pooled $800 together through local churches to purchase ten acres of land to create Emancipation Park in Houston to host future Juneteenth celebrations.

Q: Should it be a national holiday?

A: Of course! Black history is American history; we did build this place for largely free .99, you know.

Due to the fact that not everyone wakes up at the same time and many are still content with being quiet June 19 only to act a plumb donkey fifteen days later on July 4 – which our ancestors were still working when the United States of America came to be way back in 1776.

Fam: Armed with the knowledge that we have today, turn up next Wednesday instead for #Juneteenth pic.twitter.com/nrQ9mXu5je

— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) June 11, 2019