Juneteenth: A Time to Celebrate?

I never heard much, if anything, about Juneteenth as a child. I definitely didn’t learn about it in school. I would’ve remembered that. I actually didn’t learn a whole lot about of slavery either. It seemed like a quick chapter, encapsulated in pictures of wigged white men and expressionless slaves. The slaves always appeared to be the barbaric ones. I also remember learning that once Abe Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery was over. I’d come to learn much later that wasn’t exactly the case. Union soldiers had to ride into Texas and force the state to free their slaves - more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. It happened on June 19, 1865. The following year Juneteenth was born - even though most slaves were still not free, and those who tried to make good on the promise often perished in the pursuit. .

Should it have been a day to celebrate? A day to start making demands? A day to mourn? I’m still trying to figure it out myself and having a hard time of it.

As aforementioned, records show that following Juneteenth, Texas didn’t free all slaves. Many if not most would be forced to work for years longer. Countless numbers of freed slaves who’d tried to flee their masters, and make their way to freedom were shot, lynched, and brutalized - and nothing was done, because there weren’t any laws on the books about protecting slaves as humans - just replacing the property value they afforded.

Back to the granted ‘freedom’. What was the recourse of the freed slave if done wrong? They had no rights. Who would they call on for assistance? The sheriffs - known then as the slave patrols? Their former masters? The Union? Not sure there was anybody to reach out to, aside from other slaves and family members who cohabitated in their endless toils. They weren’t really free.

But, let’s just say were really free - now what? Where could they go? Since they weren’t yet protected by the law, what could they do? Build a house to have it burnt down? Start a family that you couldn’t protect? Plow a farm to have it destroyed? Again, they weren’t really free.

I imagine being one of the slaves that received the word on that June day that slavery was over in Texas, although it had been over across most of the country for several years - and tried to imagine, based on all of the information we now know, what I might have felt. My first thought was scared - not knowing the next steps. Seeing slaves brutalized for ‘acting free’. Another emotion is a slight relief that things were seemingly changing - but, coupled with the brutal realities still going on all around me. I don’t think being overly happy and celebratory would’ve been high on the list of emotions I might’ve felt though. I would’ve learned by then that being too happy or celebratory, as a black person at that time, could get you killed - especially when it came to trying to take advantage of the unprotected freedoms. You had to learn how to appear content and appreciative for whatever you had. If you got too excited, it might’ve been assumed that you had a little too much. And somebody would take it from you, at which point nothing could be done. So, yeah, I’m thinking I would’ve hid my emotions - that is if I really believed that change was coming. I’m hopeful that I would’ve believed.

As we start to honor Juneteenth as a national holiday, I’m hopeful that people will use this day as one of reflection and humility. A day to educate ourselves on our own American history, which for years has been either misrepresented or simply left out of our history books - because it’s hard to believe, and bigger, it makes people uncomfortable.

We need people to be uncomfortable. We need people to be humble. More than anything, we need people to be educated.

Read more about the origins of Juneteenth here.