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Juneteenth
by Archie P. McDonald |
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Most East Texans
who have lived here more than at least a month of Sundays know that African Americans
claim June 19, or Juneteenth, as their own special day to celebrate freedom. Probably
whites ought to celebrate it as well, because freedom for everyone is a good idea,
and second, because the end of slavery blessed whites as well.
But do you
know why June 19 is such a special day?
I know one can celebrate without
knowing, as I observed among the black community of Toronto when I visited that
Canadian city in June 2002. I know they had no idea why the day was important,
other than as an excuse for a party, because a television interviewer asked some
of the celebrants about it and as close as any could come was a vague reference
to a Union general and Galveston.
Close, as the fella used to say, only counts in a game of pitching horseshoes.
Our history is more precise.
June 19, 1865, is the day Union
General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with the first federal troops after
the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi had been surrendered nearly
three weeks earlier. On that day, then, Granger proclaimed the Civil War ended
in Texas and all wartime proclamations in effect. This included the freeing of
slaves of all persons who had remained in rebellion against the United States
after January 1, 1863, which included every slave owner in Texas.
This made the slaves technically "free" of such owners but it did not end slavery
as an institution. The instrument that did that was the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution, ratified later that same year. And it did not make the freedmen
citizens; that waited upon the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, which
came about in 1868.
Still, Juneteenth is as good a day as any, and perhaps
better than most, to celebrate freedom. It is also a good day to remember how
it came about.
Juneteenth celebrations had peaked by the time Jim Crow
came to dominate race relations by 1900, but continued until nearly eclipsed by
the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s when African Americans did not
want to be reminded of slavery. Juneteenth has made a comeback in more recent
decades and has spread well beyond Texas’s borders as black Texans relocate or
others just hear about a good celebration of freedom and want to join in. Why
else would they be interviewing someone in Toronto about Juneteenth?
© Archie P. McDonald
All
Things Historical
June
6, 2005 column
A syndicated column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
(This
column is provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical Association.
Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books
on Texas.)
More
on Texas Black History |
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