Happy Juneteenth, the Day that Marks America's True Independence
As a lover of history, it's sad that I grew up in a nation that taught me nothing about this deeply important holiday; that needs to change for current and future generations
Happy Juneteenth, America's second and I would say true Independence Day (I'm flying the Juneteenth flag at my home for the first time today). As a lover of history my entire life, I'm embarrassed that I knew nothing of this day — marking the final emancipation of slaves and abolishment of slavery in this country — for most of my life, and ashamed that I grew up in an education system that taught me nothing about it.
Proudly flying the Juneteenth flag at my home this morning.
I wrote about the history and significance of Juneteenth through the eyes of three African American women in today's Rossmoor News (www.Rossmoornews.com). Their experiences, stories and thoughts are compelling and insightful. I hope you will take the time to check it out.
A quote from one of them, Charles Etta Richardson, who was born in Gavelston, Texas, where Juneteenth was born following the Civil War, really hit home with me:
I think we have made tremendous progress, and young people are much more open. I think they also need to know more about our past. If you continue to extract that from history, taking it out of the schools and the books, history can really repeat itself if you don’t know about it.
In a few weeks, parades and fireworks shows will be held throughout the United States for the Fourth of July (Independence Day). But as we all know, the independence that our founding fathers, many of whom kept human beings in bondage, declared on July 4, 1776, did not apply to all residents of this land. And the lofty principles articulated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence continue to be a work in progress nearly 250 years later.
In contrast to the Fourth of July, today’s celebration of Juneteenth will be ignored by or unknown to most Americans, but the very fact that it is now a federal holiday, and has slowly creeped into the consciousness of many Americans, is both a sign of progress and a testament to how much more is required for America to face the harsh truths of its past and continue on that tortured road to building a nation where the self-evident truth of equality for all becomes a reality for all.
Great article. I wish I had learned about it in school and taught it, when I was a teacher. White people, mostly, whispered about slavery after Emancipation, but didn’t teach their kids. They wanted to sweep it all under the rug. Likewise, it was easy to “forget” the unjust enrichment white people enjoyed that came from the forced labor of blacks. White people still think their families before them earned everything they had by hard work, forgetting the hard labor of slaves that brought in cotton harvests and built the fancy mansions of their masters. We tell our kids a great lie in this country: that people get what they deserve. But some get far more, and some far less, than they deserve. In the end, things are better now but not decent yet: our health care lags behind the decent countries of the world, and we still haven’t manned up and committed to public schools when all the other unatrocious nations have.