Juneteenth: Get Free and Keep Trying
Sugar cane on my fingertips and shackles on my feet.
There were limitations to emancipating me until I sunk my tooth into Juneteenth.
Freedom tastes like grandma’s sweet potato pie.
But it goes from master’s plantation to mass incarceration
As the Jim Crow flies, all of this happened, more or less
This is Up From Slavery, meets Porgy and Bess
Hashtag Juneteenth lands on the ear more softly than Happy Juneteenth. Emphasis without dissonance.
On the one hand, there is cause for celebration each year on June 19th as we commemorate the day in 1865 that the abolition of slavery was announced in Texas, thus informing the final African-American slaves of their emancipation. There is good reason that some voices are calling for recognition of June 19 as a national holiday. Today, many black families commemorate the occasion with special meals.
Simultaneously, the day is an opportunity to consider how well the United States is keeping her promises. For the United States was founded on freedom, and yet that promise was not extended to all who resided on these shores. While asserting the equal creation of all men, there were still people that could be bought, sold, chained, beaten, raped and separated from their families without impunity. Even after Abraham Lincoln proclaimed emancipation on January 1, 1863, it still took over two and a half years for all of the slaves to find out about the new promise that the United States had made.
That promise of freedom would still not be realized, however. Over 3400 black people would be lynched in the United States from 1884–1955 as racial terrorism ran unabated. With the ushering in of the civil rights movement in the mid-1950’s, some consider that decade to be a true turning point in the United States as the Jim Crow era slowly faded from the timeline. This is characterized in a chart that circulates widely on the internet, demonstrating the relatively short time that black folks have been “free” in the US.
The chart has never sat quite right with me however, as it seems presumptuous to put us in the green a decade before the assassinations of MLK, Malcolm X, and many other folks who were marching and fighting for freedom. And even if the mid-1960’s had been the beginning of a concerted shift toward green, what would it really have taken for the US to truly repent for all of the harm it had done over 245 years of state-sanctioned slavery and another nearly 90 years of state-sanctioned segregation? Is that a switch that can be flipped? Would we be the one civilization in the history of forever where the powerful and privileged would cede power and make meaningful recompense for our original and ongoing sin of violent racism?
{Narrator Voice}
We would not.
{End Narrator Voice}
I came across another chart more recently that rang much more true to me. One that better captures the darkness and depravity of the slave trade, that communicates the hell of segregation, and that highlights the work that currently needs to be done for the United States to keep her promises. Though very similar to the first chart, a couple of palette changes and an extra label improve both clarity and accuracy.
Can a country truly be free when she incarcerates her citizens at a far higher rate than any other country in the world? Can a country truly be a land of opportunity when punishment is so heavily preferred over rehabilitation? Can a country truly tout equality when the justice system is disproportionately harsh on impoverished citizens and citizens of color?
While the debate rages on regarding how the United States treats immigrants and asylum seekers, it’s incredibly disappointing yet unsurprising that the only solutions we can come up with are walls and cages. While that reality causes our promises to ring hallow, it is very much true to who we have been.
As we stand here today, many more of us do so much more free than would have been possible for our parents, their parents, and their parents’ parents. That is to be celebrated by all Americans. Juneteenth should be a day of happiness and thankfulness.
But Juneteenth should also be a day of reflection where we look at our neighbor and acknowledge that our freedom is wrapped up in their freedom.
And if your question for me is “who is my neighbor?” then I have an old friend I’d like to introduce you to.
