Emancipation from slavery came at different times in Southern states as the Civil War ended. In Texas, it came on June 19, 1865, and Black Americans began celebrating the date in 1866. During the Jim Crow era, such festivities were more subdued as white people justified all types of violence against black individuals without fear of penalty.
During the civil rights movement and since that period, Juneteenth has been a significant day of celebration and reflection — mostly as an insiders’ holiday. In recent decades, activists have pushed to recognize the day as a federal holiday.
It was first a state holiday in Texas in 1980, and other states eventually acknowledged an observance of the day. It did not become an official state holiday in Massachusetts until 2022. Today, just 20 additional states observe Juneteenth as a state holiday, and each of them enacted it 2020-2023.
President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on June 17, 2021, making it our 11th federal holiday. Words matter here. Naming it an independence day implies that our July 4 holiday as its own independence day did not apply to all Americans.
One of Frederick Douglass’ most famous speeches, “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” was delivered on July 5, 1852 in Rochester, NY. After being enslaved himself, Douglass spent decades imploring the United States to do right: “The best friend of a nation is he who most faithfully rebukes her for her sins.”
This particular speech begins seemingly acknowledging the founding of the United States as liberty against British tyranny. Then Douglass lays out the inherent evil and hypocrisy by white Christian men who justify slavery.
He said, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
…You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three million of your countrymen.”
If Douglass was brought into the present day, I suspect he would be of two minds. He would be moved by strides in education and equity for Black Americans; however, with a deeper dive, he would feel dismayed by the movement to stifle historical honesty in education. He would be deeply troubled that his words are still apt: “America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”
When Juneteenth was more of an insular celebration, its meaning was clear. Some fear that broadening it will dilute its significance. That certainly happened with Mother’s Day. It was conceived by Ann Jarvis to address peace and social welfare. She was distraught that it became a commercialized affair.
Juneteenth can be a day universally to teach and learn about slavery and emancipation. There are ways to explain it to children at various ages, and there are plenty of inspirational heroes to celebrate. If we are not false to the past or present, we can be honest to the future for a healthier democracy.
It feels appropriate for me as a white anti-racism trainer to spend the day in reflection. I will finally begin to read the Douglass biography I bought a while ago, and I will read a few of Alice Walker’s poems while I consider my place and potential as a current and future activist.
This year, the Justins — Tennessee state Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones — are very much on my mind as they represent today’s young people who inspire and insist on an ethical and kind world. Gloria Johnson — their white accomplice rounding out the Tennessee Three — reminds me that each of us can make a world of difference. When the Justins were expelled from the state legislature for decrying gun violence on the floor after a tragic mass shooting, their districts sent them back to serve. The district leaders seem to agree that appropriate “decorum” on the floor includes speaking truth to power.
J.M. Sorrell believes in intersectional justice work and conscious action alongside celebration.