Juneteenth celebrates our independence
13th June 2022 · 0 Comments
On June 19, 1865, about two months after the Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Va., Gordon Granger, a Union general, arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved African Americans of their freedom and that the Civil War had ended. General Granger’s announcement came more than two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863.
The following year, on June 19, 1866, African Americans in Texas held the first Juneteenth celebration. Last year, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed an executive order making Juneteenth a federal holiday.
As we celebrate Juneteenth, our “Freedom Day,” this year, let‘s party with a purpose. As we commemorate the significant contributions of our people, their struggle, and the resilience, determination, and steadfastness of Black Americans who refuse to quit fighting for equality, let‘s understand that freedom is not free.
What does that mean? For Black Americans, that means the struggle for freedom and equality continues. After the parties, the fun, and camaraderie, let’s rededicate ourselves to obtaining what is owed to us. Reparations for sure, freedom if nothing else.
The battle for true freedom and justice will be over when we are free to live our best lives: When we are no longer in fear of being murdered because of the color of our skin; when we can live without the police being called on us for selling bottles of water; swimming in our apartment complex pool; bird-watching; being pulled over by cops and being murdered after a traffic stop for air fresheners hanging on our rear view mirror; for sleeping in our cars; for jaywalking; for selling loose cigarettes; busted taillights; or driving a fancy car.
We will be free when we can vote without restrictions, without gerrymandered districts, without suppressive rules, and when we are not erased from the voting rolls for not voting in two successive federal elections.
We will be free when we expel white supremacists from elected offices and replace them with public servants who want to serve. We will be free when our children and we can enjoy benefits owed us for the taxes we pay into the system.
We will be free when those who represent us do the people’s will and when weapons of war are taken off our streets. We will be free when the City Council of New Orleans negotiates fair utility rates for us, expands our police force, creates programs for children and youth outside of school hours and on weekends, and NOPS provides vo-tech training for young, disassociated teens. We will be free when we can walk down our streets without fear of being attacked, carjacked, or robbed.
Plans for picnics, parties, backyard barbecues, and trips are in play to celebrate July 4, America’s Independence Day.
Black Americans also celebrate the nation’s breaking of the colonial chains fostered upon the European settlers by Great Britain. The 13-state government offered freedom from tyranny and an end to taxation without representation. And we should celebrate July 4. Everyone born in America is technically a native America. This land is ours too.
We should celebrate Juneteenth and July 4 because our enslaved and emancipated ancestors fought and died for this country, our freedom, and our civil rights.
Black Americans fought and died in every war involving the U.S., including the American Revolution, which began in 1775. Historians estimate that between 5,000 and 8,000 African-descended people participated in the Revolution on the Patriot side,
Indeed, our ancestors were still in chains when the final draft of the Declaration of Independence was signed in Congress on July 4, 1776. Yet, many free people of color in New Orleans advocated for the freedom of the enslaved.
The hypocrisy of that day in 1776 is painful to contemplate. America’s founding fathers wanted freedom for themselves but refused to free the enslaved.
How cruel and self-serving was the perpetuation of slavery by whites, especially the founding fathers, who wanted to continue owning human beings and using them for free labor for nearly another century before U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863?
Even after 660,000 Americans lost their lives fighting over slavery in the Civil War, how intractable was white supremacy that Lincoln exempted certain portions of slave-holding states from abolishing slavery at the signing of the proclamation?
“Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all enslaved people in the United States. Instead, it declared free only those enslaved people living in states not under Union control. Some Louisiana parishes and portions of states under union control could continue using slave labor.
“William Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state, commented, ‘We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.’ Lincoln was fully aware of the irony, but he did not want to antagonize the slave states loyal to the Union by setting their slaves free,” according to PBS’ teacher guide.
How devastating to our enslaved ancestors and free people of color was Lincoln’s appeasement that allowed slave-masters in Union-controlled counties and parishes to keep the system of slavery in place?
And how crafty were U.S. lawmakers in writing slavery into the 13th amendment, the very constitutional amendment that abolished slavery? According to the amendment, incarcerated and imprisoned people can be treated like slaves.
America’s history of the wrongful treatment of Black people began during the founding of the colonies and continues today. Despite efforts to marginalize Blacks and erase our history, we persist. We fight for our rights. And we survive.
Juneteenth is important because the holiday reminds us that while we have traveled a great distance toward equality and justice, we have a long way to go.
We know the struggle is not over, and the battle for equality and fairness may never end. Many of our enslaved ancestors were freed with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
We all know the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” But it also takes a village to make collective progress.
What the ancestors did after Juneteenth is nothing short of miraculous. They used ingenuity, inventiveness, and a strong work ethic to create decent lives for themselves and their children. They worked together as a proverbial village. They bought from Black-owned businesses, helped each other, and shared resources.
There was a time in our community when we looked after each other. Big mama would sit on the porch and watch what the neighborhood children would do. If she saw them doing wrong, she’d paddle them and tell their parents, who also spanked them when they got home.
So, we must follow their example. We must call the village together, plan our survival, and demand what is ours. We must return to the days when we looked out for each other.
Juneteenth offers a perfect setting for organizing and planning.
This Juneteenth, let’s party like its 1866 but commit to becoming the change we want to see in 2022. Let’s dress in ancestral garments, dance to our music, eat our delicious cultural dishes, engage in cultural activities, and prepare to advance our own agenda.
While enjoying the festivities, let’s buy books by Black authors from Community Book Center, patronize Black businesses, subscribe to Black-owned newspapers that keep us informed, and encourage our friends and families to register and vote.
Let’s plan to elect candidates that commit to working with us and for us. Let’s demand justice, equality, and reparations from all who owe us, whether institutions, governments, corporations, etc.
Above all, let’s get loud and proactive in speaking truth to power. Sitting on the sidelines and letting the powers that be abuse us and use us is unacceptable.
We must act.
This article originally published in the June 13, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
