JUNETEENTH AND JULY 4: AMERICA’S INDEPENDENCE AS A NATION – AFRICAN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE AS A PEOPLE

The United States just celebrated its 244^th birthday. It did so amidst calls that the country establish a federal holiday that would fall on June 19 or Juneteenth. Such a holiday would

mark a major milestone in American history and commemorate the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, to take control of the state and inform the formerly enslaved population they had been freed by President

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Adoption of the 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution followed later in 1865.

Though every state except Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota now recognize Juneteenth in some way, it appears many Americans gained their first understanding of Juneteenth this year. Efforts have begun in Congress that would make it a federal holiday. We think that effort worthwhile, especially when juxtaposed with the fact the country celebrates its independence 15 days later. 

Raising Public Awareness

Many Americans never heard of Juneteenth until this year when protests erupted

concerning President Trump’s plan for holding on June 19^th in Tulsa his first rally since the coronavirus pandemic began. Trump bowed to pressure and moved the rally to June 20.

Trump Rally, Tulsa, OK June 20, 2020

Formerly enslaved people began commemorating June 19 as Juneteenth with activities like picnics and public readings of the proclamation. At first, it was a regional holiday, celebrated mostly in Texas. The custom spread across the South. Juneteenth celebrations grew in popularity in the 1970s, but many Americans knew little of the day or its significance until this year and the Trump controversy.

Rob, for example, didn’t study Juneteenth in school. He got sketchy information in his early teens from his grandmother but learned the details only after moving to Texas as an adult in 1981. Henry heard about it from family, but got the whole story, “probably” in a junior high history class. Woodson isn’t sure when he learned of it, but thinks his mother, something of a black history buff, taught him the story in grade school in connection with black history month.          

Why We Think This Is important

The Juneteenth story reminds us that even black people didn’t know slavery was over until more than two years after Lincoln signed

the Emancipation Proclamation, two years during which abuse and mistreatment of African Americans as chattel continued. In fact, arguably, we’re still fighting the Civil War and America should never forget this story, lest

we repeat it. Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson forcefully presents that contention in her new book, How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America. Battles over the Confederate flag and monuments to Confederate officers just highlight the point. 

                    

Having Juneteenth as a recognized federal holiday could help remind us of the history.

Too often we forget our national horrors. Grim reminders of slavery’s dark stain on America’s story reside at the African American History and Culture Museum and at America’s Black Holocaust Museum. The webpage for that museum describes its purpose as “interpret[ing] the African American experience in the United States as an ongoing holocaust from the time of captivity in Africa to the present day.” The museum

chronicles the deaths of 12.5 million African men, women, youth, and children who died as a result of their capture, voyage, and enslavement as part of the Triangular Slave Trade. Africans, fortunate enough to survive the voyage, still endured beatings, maiming, lynching, and rape. If we are not to repeat the grave mistakes of the past, we must

Scars from beatings

understand the scars slavery left and feel the joy that accompanied its legal end. In a March 7, 2015, speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, President Obama warned that “…this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us.”

                           

Symbols matter, particularly in a democracy. A healthy debate about whether the nation should recognize the importance – symbolic and real – of emancipation can only contribute to the developing, robust national discussion on racial

Collage of some of the unarmed blacks killed by police

reconciliation. Millions of Americans took to the streets and protested police killings of unarmed black men and women like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Millions of Americans are now engaged in conversations about how we resolve our racial discord. Where declaring a race free fits into the process of forming a true democracy merits being part of that discussion.

And the cost?

Federal holidays cost money. Some industries

take a hit, but holiday shopping fuels others. Foes of the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday for a time made cost the centerpiece of their opposition. Some will oppose making Juneteenth a national holiday based on economics.

The cost issue matters and Congress should evaluate it during the debate. When considering that, legislators must keep in mind what the country stands for.  Adding a

Juneteenth holiday could help heal our land. The protests show Americans of many colors believe race discrimination, particularly in policing, remains a real concern. They have called attention to things

we must address. If adding a holiday celebrating the end of a brutal chapter in our history helps with healing a problem the protesters have identified, perhaps we should pay that cost.

Hopefully, no one will see adding a Juneteenth holiday as competition for the Fourth of July. Celebrating our decision to tear ourselves from the tyranny of a king and our decision to emancipate a race are far from mutually exclusive.