REFLECTIONS ON JUNETEENTH

Like many, if not most Americans, especially white people, I had heard the name "Juneteenth" but never really knew anything about it. Well, 2020 is the year that everyone with half a brain, and a willingness to use it, knows that Juneteenth is a celebration of the emancipation of slaves in the United States. There is a huge rush to memorialize this holiday celebrated by African Americans because of the historic moment we are in, what some call the American Spring. A single spark can light a prairie fire (I think Mao Zedong is credited with  that saying), and so the public execution of George Floyd by a police officer has ignited a growing movement in the USA and abroad for justice and freedom, at long last.

Juneteenth is a celebration based on a General Order (Number 3) issued by Major-General Granger of the Union Army in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865. The General Order is short and simple:

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.

Slaves in America were actually freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in January, 1863; however, the Texans ignored it. In fact, many Southern slave owners moved their slaves to Texas because it was the state farthest away from the Union and unlikely to follow the proclamation unless forced to do so. The Civil War ended in April, 1865, and General Granger, with about 2,000 soldiers, arrived in Texas to enforce the Union victory.

Freed slaves in Texas established June nineteenth, Juneteenth, as a day to commemorate and celebrate. Over time, the day has been taken up by other Americans as the final day of emancipation, two years after the Proclamation. This is truly a significant day, and it's significance and importance deserve to be understood and celebrated. 

An example of institutionalized racism in America is the simple fact that few people in this country knew anything about emancipation, and certainly nothing about June 19, 1865. This was not taught in American schools. What we all learned was that Lincoln freed the slaves, the North fought the South in a Civil War, the North won, and the slaves were free. Simple. Grossly oversimplified! 

Juneteenth, 2020 has motivated me to study the emancipation and the time afterward in more detail; this I will be doing over time. (For anyone who has not read "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander, it is a good starting point.) General Order No. 3 raises more questions for me than it answers. The subtext, in my opinion, has many facets:

• what "personal rights" did the freedmen gain?
• what "rights of property" did people gain who owned no property?
• did "hired labor'" basically mean the freedmen became wage slaves or indentured servants under the terms of being a sharecropper?
• was the payment of wages enforced?
• what was the reality of "they will not be supported in idleness?" Did freed slaves receive any money or other assistance from the U.S. government? 

One basic question underlying all of the above is: did anyone enforce this General Order? Certainly the white former slave owners had no interest in doing any of this, other than finding some way to use the labor of the freed slaves to continue their cotton or other agricultural endeavors.  Certainly the legal and legislative system of Texas had not much interest in enforcing the Order. So what happened? What did people do who were suddenly, in a moment of spoken proclamation, free people? I already have a basic set of answers to these questions; however, by looking into the details, by finding and reading stories of real people from that time, I will certainly expand my mind and my understanding. 

The failures of Reconstruction, and the establishment of Jim Crow laws were how Southern whites tried, and were mostly successful, to return African Americans to a status in which they were not truly "free." The present movement and awakening in America, emerged from police killings of black citizens, brings a stark reality into sharp focus: slavery in it's many forms and mutations did not disappear from America, it was institutionalized into the very fabric of our society. 

Please don't get the wrong idea from this post, dear reader; Juneteenth is a day to be celebrated by every American to acknowledge the historic official end to slavery, and also to show support of our black sisters and brothers and fight with them, shoulder-to-shoulder, for true equality, justice and freedom for all. It is also important for every American to learn more about slavery, emancipation, and the course of history since that time.

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