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A Special Juneteenth
Sometimes I tend to get behind, so I am now writing about a special Juneteenth which occurred on Thursday, the nineteenth. According to the National Registry:
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on une 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.
At events across the country, families again gathered to tell the stories yet one more time, stories that speak of the resilience and creativity of African Americans.
Juneteenth should also be a day in which all of us recognize how African Americans have enriched this nation. It would not be too much to say America moves with an African American rhythm, sometime awkwardly, sometimes imperfectly, and many times hesitantly, but that syncopated, off-the-beat cadence is there not merely in our music, our poetry, our speech, the way we walk and dress, but in the very soul of America.
There are those who would deny that soul exists and others who would hold that what W.E.B. DuBois called the “souls of black folk” could never exist in the minds of white folks. But just the same it is there, for without Juneteenth America would be something else, something not quite aa vital or alive.
But something special ran through Juneteenth in this extraordinary year, something that had to bring a special edge to the celebration, for this Juneteenth, African Americans could rejoice that for the first time in American history a black man carried the Presidential nomination of a major political party. A year form now the celebration could be about an African American President.
In honor of this special Juneteenth, I include a poem that is sometimes read on this day, Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise:”
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, African Americans, Barack Obama, Civil War, emancipation proclamation, Juneteenth, Maya Angelou, W.E.B. DuBois, YouTubeTagged with: Abraham Lincoln • African Americans • Barack Obama • Civil War • emancipation proclamation • Juneteenth • Maya Angelou • W.E.B. DuBois • YouTube
