Juneteenth and the Call to Action

Juneteenth National Independence Day soon will be celebrated as the nation’s 12th federal holiday thanks to a bipartisan vote in Congress earlier this week. At a time when Americans can’t even agree on what we see with our own eyes, it is refreshing to see members of Congress coming together to take a small step in our long reckoning with America’s original sin. Texas, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Washington, and Oregon already recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday. And I’m proud to work for a company that already honors Juneteenth as a holiday.??

By now, you may have heard the story of how June 19, 1865, became known as “Juneteenth.” The popular version says it took two years and a journey of over 1,400 miles for the word to reach Texas that enslaved persons were free. With the recognition of the rights that came with emancipation, Black Americans have commemorated Juneteenth with?celebrations, building new lives, and a?new tradition.?The historical record fills in some gaps and reveals a slightly different account, though.

First, President Abraham Lincoln did not end the Civil War or the institution of slavery when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Though the proclamation declared enslaved persons in Confederate states free, the practice of slavery was not abolished officially until December 6, 1865. Lincoln understood that emancipation could only be granted by Congressional enactment of the 13th amendment and ratification by the several States.?(As an aside, there is a difference of opinion over whether the 13th amendment actually ended legal slavery in the U.S.)?

Second, the rebel state of Texas continued to fight against the Union after what is popularly considered the end of the Civil War, the April 6, 1865 surrender by Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. In fact, Texas Confederates did not surrender until mid-May of 1865.

Now enter Union Major General Gordon Granger, who left his post in Louisiana to take command of all the Union troops in Texas following the surrender of the Texas Confederates. Granger was sent to Galveston, at the time the largest city in Texas, to liberate enslaved persons in the state and to set forth the terms of how former slaves and their owners would relate to each other.?General Order No. 3, issued on June 19, 1865, states as follows:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

There’s a lot there to unpack, but let’s finish up the history part. Granger did not bring word of the end of slavery to Texas as much as he brought a military force to liberate the enslaved. News of emancipation reached Texas as early as 1863 through reporting in more than 100 newspapers. According to a new book, On Juneteenth by Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed, “Some African Americans in Galveston and likely other residents already knew the gist of the general order prior to June 19th.” Not surprisingly, the news of emancipation did not go over well with white Texans. Many were incensed by the order. Dr. Gordon-Reed’s research revealed that dozens of newly-emancipated persons caught celebrating their freedom were beaten with a lash as punishment.

Now for the formerly enslaved who remained in Texas, General Order No. 3 must have raised more questions than it answered. What does it mean to have “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property” and who will enforce these rights? If I am now an employee, what power do I have to negotiate for decent pay and habitable living conditions? While “remaining quietly” at this present home, do I own this home in consideration of generations of free labor, or must I now pay my former master for living and working on his property? Without education or protection of the law, how do I become equal in rights and property with people who have a 244-year head start and have been put in charge of my political power? Will I be considered idle and subject to imprisonment if there is literally no work for me, if I become sick or disabled, or need to prioritize the care of my family?

For most African Americans, the answers to these questions remain elusive. Moreover, these questions still haunt many marginalized people -- people of color, the indigenous, women, LGBT, people who live in opportunity deserts, and our veterans to name a few. Freedom follows a familiar pattern of progress and regress, bliss and backlash, independence and insurrection. Emancipation gave rise to Black Codes and Constitutional Conventions. Enfranchisement gave way to voter suppression. Economic gains gave way to lynchings and land theft. Homeownership gave way to redlining and racial covenants. It should come as no surprise that this pattern leaves so many communities stuck or falling for generations.

Juneteeth is more solemn than jubilee for me. It’s a reminder that freedom may be declared by proclamation or decree, but resistance to freedom too often had to be overcome at the tip of a bayonet. My favorite depiction of this truth is Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting, The Problem We All Live With. Rockwell captured the powerful image of the diminutive six-year-old Ruby Bridges’ historic walk in 1960, protected by four towering federal marshals, into an all-white elementary school in New Orleans following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Nearly 100 years after Juneteenth, the right of this child to attend an all-white school had to be enforced by federal agents over the hatred of a howling, violent mob. Without the show of armed Union soldiers in Galveston, would the emancipation of African Americans in Texas have happened on Juneteenth? Probably not.?

Juneteenth demands an honest examination of this nation’s painful and long-obscured history. It is a clarion call for the sustained effort to repair the lingering damage inflicted by that terrible institution of human bondage. Fifty-four years ago this month, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. published one of his lesser-known books, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? It was the last book Dr. King published before his assassination the next year. The book is as relevant today as when it was first published. Dr. King wrote: “we need the vision to see in this generation’s ordeals the opportunity to transfigure both ourselves and American society…Let us be those creative dissenters who will call our beloved nation to a higher destiny…to a new plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness.”?In that spirit, let us dedicate ourselves to the goal of absolute equality and to move beyond our tortured history to become members of one human family.

?Happy Juneteenth. Let’s get to work.