LIFE: “Juneteenth”

by Alexis Rosendo

Welcome to Juneteenth! We are glad that you’re here!

On this day, June 19th, 160 years ago, a new kind of Independence Day spread across the United States south. This was not the kind of Independence Day that meant that the newly-independent could then go and become a self-sufficient nation far away from their homeland, making their own rules and answering to no one. This was the kind that meant that those granted independence were already so far from their homeland that all they then wanted was to be included: to be a person, a man, a woman, a human…an equal to the one who granted their independence. 

If you are unfamiliar, Juneteenth is the celebration of the emancipation of slaves in the United States, and June 19, 1985, the first time it was ever celebrated, was a celebration celebrated 900 days late. President Lincoln had declared the slaves free with his signature on the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and Juneteenth was 900 days late. A few months before Juneteenth occurred the Civil War had ended – General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Confederacy to the Union. The Union had won and the Confederacy was (and is!) no more. The 4 years of brutal war that was incited over the states’ rights to override federal laws regarding the morality of slavery had finally ended. The plea to strengthen an economy that rode on the back of an oppressive system in which humans were less than dogs had finally fallen on deaf ears. Juneteenth is the day General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce the freedom of freed slaves who were still living enslaved and not yet living free…900 DAYS LATE.

But better late than never! Sources report that over 250,000 black slaves were free, and had been free for 900 days, and just didn’t know it yet. 900 days without being regarded as an object to be bought, sold and traded slipped right through the oblivious fingers of Black people until Union representatives entered into Texas to enforce what was already true: that paid labor would replace slave labor and that one man would no longer own another. The slaves were free. Juneteenth.

Today, and every year, let us celebrate Juneteenth by adorning the spirit of General Granger by riding into oppressive spaces and reminding our fellow human that they are free. They are free to stay, free to leave, free to work, free to sleep, free to walk, free to speak their mind, but most of all, free to live. Their freedom is a right, and that came at too high a cost to trifle with. Today’s social justice climate has been fractured with the constant reminder that some people would know of the freedom of an oppressed, bruised and broken soul, and never tell them. Some would see an oppressed, bruised and broken soul, and find further ways to oppress, bruise and break them. Some will let other’s oppression, their bruises and their brokenness till the ground that they will then eat from. 

160 years ago the issue wasn’t if the slaves were free (they were!) but the issue was if they knew it. What has never before been so true than it is today, is this: those who know they are free or have never been enslaved have to voice freedom for the one who is free, but struggling to believe it because of the eyes through which they daily see the world. Freedom means nothing unless it is reinforced in actions – what is said with the mouth must be proved with the hand. 

We can celebrate Juneteenth with music that calls up cadences from Kenya, but we still have to reinforce each other’s freedom. We can eat red foods to symbolize the struggle and the red-tinted foods made with hibiscus leaves in West Africa, but we still have to reinforce each other’s freedom. We can wear shirts that say “BLACK LIVES MATTER”, but with our actions alone do we honor the perseverance and relentless strength of African American people after 400 years of oppression. They were finally free; today we will continue to be free. Celebrate Juneteenth with everyone you know by reminding them that they are free – and then treating them like you believe it!