Juneteenth: In case you weren’t sure, a quick history lesson

We all mostly have a sense of what “Juneteenth” is.  It’s really not that complicated.  Southern slave owners, didn’t like the news of “The Emancipation Proclamation” and suppressed for obvious reasons that “Lincoln freed the slaves.” In a sentence, Juneteenth is the celebration of the fact and the moment that eventually the news of emancipation spread everywhere.  Here is a little more.

January 1, 1863 was the official day when President Lincoln’s famed “Proclamation of Emancipation went into effect.  That’s what we learned it in school.  It all seemed so clean.  Yet, unbeknownst to me and I believe much of white America it was actually two and a half years later before the news of freedom spread everywhere. 

I believe (said with a cautionary tone) it is still unclear exactly what sequence of events took place, or didn’t take place to hold off the news that slavery had been declared illegal nationwide from spreading.  We have to remember of course that in the 1860’s there was no internet, radio, TV, or even a national newspaper.  I am sure I am behind all the details of how the Emancipation Proclamation was actually suppressed.  I mean I personally never heard the word “Juneteenth” until probably 15 years ago, so I am hardly an expert, but in a time when we know about a Japanese earthquake within a half hour of it happening, how news that there was a federal declaration to end slavery can be suppressed is, or maybe was shocking.  Watching Fox news coverage of the No Kings protests, or better their lack thereof, has made this more understandable. 

One story as to how the news was suppressed was that one of the messengers spreading this liberating news was murdered on his way to Texas. 

Another believable report describes that southern land owners conspired together to censored the news to maintain their labor force for as long as they could.  There has been speculation that Federal Troops were part of that suppression.  They could all be true.  Probably are. What is certainly true is that the suppression worked for more than 2 years.

Finally on June 19th 1863, Major General Gordon Granger with flag in one hand, and a gun in hand, stormed the shores of Galveston Texas.  He was motivated to announce the news, and brought along enough Union troops to make it stick.  This is the moment Juneteenth celebrates.

Understandably on that June day 162 years ago such news brought with is a waterfall of all the different emotions you might expect.  People reacted with all the range of emotions and behaviors you might expect.  There was shock, of course jubilation, relief, and confusion as to what to do next.

Can you imagine being held against your will for your entire lifetime, and then be told you can go!  Followed by where?

For us the closest equivalent might be the day you realize the cancer is gone.  Or the divorce from a destructive ex is final.  Maybe a parallel is the day you meet the love of your life.

Even those examples might not even be enough.

Reports suggest that people could not wait to leave the plantation and start living more freely.  And formerly enslaved people started moving.  

Today, Galveston Texas has become a place of pilgrimage, and as it should be, Juneteenth is a day of joy and celebration. 

However, we should not miss the lesson that when justice is expensive, and inconvenient, it will be resisted in surprising ways.  Insidiously quiet undramatic ways mostly.