June Roundup and What Juneteenth means to the ROUTES staff?
Among the stories ROUTES staff will take a look this month: I asked them to join me in expressing “What does Juneteenth mean to you?”, Byron Saunders: “Theatre Director and Producer Ellen Stewart of La MaMa”, Graham Button and Lisa DuBois: “Black Masking Indians at New Orleans Jazz Festival”, Ellen Levitt: “MBL , Why so few African-American Players?” and Perri Gaffney: Let’s Talk Broadway’s TONY Awards and Canaries.
Juneteenth has been officially proclaimed a Federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden. The Federal recognition of June 19 marking the end of the enslavement for millions of descendants of kidnapped Africans will be officially celebrated this year on June 16. June 19, 1863, is the day when enslaved Blacks in Texas were finally told they were no longer slaves, but were in fact free and had been officially freed under law for three years.
The ROUTES staff joins me in expressing what Juneteenth means to them:
Ronald Bunn — Publisher/Editor
I think this day should be a solemn and reflective one: a day to contemplate the history of slavery prior to Juneteenth. It is also a time to remember what happened after Juneteenth i.e. the lost promises of Reconstruction and the social stagnation of Jim Crow. Juneteenth as a national holiday fosters discussion of community responsibility and values, and the implementation of strategies to stabilize communities. Juneteenth provides descendant communities with new perspectives and ways to describe our shared heritage. The “othering” of Africans and their descendants in the Americas resulted in some of us calling ourselves Negroes, others as “Black,” and others calling themselves “African-American.” The inability to agree on what to call ourselves surely does not support our sorely needed unity.
Sabura Rashid – Managing Editor
Juneteenth is our 4th of July. It is the celebration of our liberation from legal bondage. It is our nineteenth century “Yes We Can” moment. But holidays, like other social rituals, lose their significance when their original meaning becomes lost in holiday sale days and hollow celebrations without context. (Think of all the sale flyers for MLK Day!)
The very state in which Juneteenth started, the state of Texas, is currently making every effort to disenfranchise its Black and Latino citizens. Not only is Texas and similar states working feverishly to eliminate the vote for certain groups, they are also destroying women’s autonomy. A new confederacy is attempting a come-back of twenty-first century proportions full of misinformation, disinformation and media manipulation. If we neglect to teach American children their history, if we neglect to prepare them, if we forget to remind our children that they stand on the shoulders of generations of Black martyrs, their children’s children may very well be in a similar position, fighting for their liberation.
Ellen Levitt — Correspondent
Believe me, I could have done without learning about some minor Civil War battles and instead, learn about Juneteenth and what it commemorates. It resonates way beyond Texas. It resonates way beyond the African-American communities. It is something that is highly meaningful for us all.
So, are the people who are griping about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools having fits because Juneteenth is now a federal holiday? Tough luck, folks, even if it doesn’t fit your hazy, lazy educational agenda.
Michael Ross Esq. — General Counsel
I first heard of Juneteenth when I was an 18-year-old airman stationed in Anchorage, Alaska. It was like being invited to a secret society meeting at a park off base near downtown Anchorage. The gathering held the promise of seeing the greatest number of black people in one place since arriving in this city that seemed far away and void of any collective African-American cultural presence. After getting there and learning a little of the historical meaning of the event, I remember feeling offended that it took me eighteen years and a trip to what then seemed like someplace out of the country* to discover this information. I can only imagine how the folks in Texas must have felt with the delayed news of freedom. My feelings quickly gave way to “joy and happiness” with the sights of beautiful black people and sounds of black music and of course the smells of soul food. I could not wait to call home to my family and friends in the “lower forty-eight,” to share the discovery.
In the four decades since that experience the meaning of Juneteenth for me has been in a state of constant change. For example, the election of Barack Obama infused the occasion with additional pride. The deaths of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Prince, Aretha Franklin and many others sprinkled a little sadness on the occasion. These artists for me are must-haves on the playlist. The tragic loss of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown and way too many others continues to inject a healthy outrage to meaning of the occasion. While I am hopeful that there will be another black president, perhaps even in my lifetime, and I can continue to enjoy the music of my favorite artists, I cannot celebrate Juneteenth with the same feelings of “joy and happiness” I had forty years ago knowing that tomorrow’s news cycle could very likely include another story of a Black person being slaughtered at the hands of the police. It is my hope that the new celebrations of Juneteenth occurring across the county include a universal recognition that if Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter then All Black Lives Must Matter! *(In fact the military considered Alaska to be an overseas tour of duty).
Lisa Dubois — Correspondent
Juneteenth transports me to a time in history when I can image the joy and pandemonium that must have ensued as former slaves tried to find acceptance. There were moments of temporary elation at the thought of freedom and finding relatives previously sold while still holding painful memories of slavery. Although it’s hard for us to imagine today but this was a time of hope for many people. It’s a little-known fact, but historian Antoinette Harrell from Louisiana has uncovered cases of African-Americans living as slaves 100 years after slavery was abolished.
Dr. Theda Palmer Saxton — Correspondent
I acknowledge Juneteenth because it is the commemoration of an actual date that demonstrates white America’s use of contrived time-sensitive communication, as a tool, to delay the freedom of thousands of Black bodies and minds. The use and misuse of communication in the Juneteenth situation remind me of current white media sources that communicate carefully engineered contextual images to promote hopelessness and despair within portions of Black communities. I feel that Juneteenth may be an opportunity to re-think our joy in looking backward and focus our attention forward on the NEWLY ENSLAVED BLACKS addicted to social media white plantations. The enslavement I witness in our communities appears to be highly accepted and financially supported. By overwhelmingly accepting communication formats that encourage dysfunctional personal norms and family values, African-Americans voluntarily become slaves to the white-owned dominant media plantations. Juneteenth warns me to be aware of the reality of the control white communication forces can have through the manipulation of controlling information. Who will make the clarion call for this generation to be set free mentally and possibly have men who can pull up their pants to freely climb the ladder to success?
Perri Gaffney — Correspondent
Juneteenth is the day that African-Americans celebrate being free. The Emancipation Proclamation legally freed the slaves on January 1, 1863. But it wasn’t put into effect everywhere until the Yankees won the Civil War, May 9, 1865. Yet, slaves who lived apart and isolated still did not know they were free until Federal troops rode in with an official proclamation. Slaves in Galveston, Texas were the last to learn on June 19, 1865. There was a huge celebration and Texas became the first state to dub June 19, Juneteenth (combining June with nineteenth) and declare it a state holiday. That’s a huge part of American History. Yet today, teaching about the American Slave Institution (that lasted for several centuries) is now under attack. It’s being distorted, and when possible, has been removed from several school curriculums. States like: Texas (that first embraced and promoted Juneteenth), Louisiana, Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Tennessee, have replaced the term “slavery” with “lifetime indentured servitude,” and “permanent unpaid labor,” or some other lie.
On June 17, 2021, President Joseph Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday. Now it won’t be so easy to simply ignore, or sweep into a closet, the atrocities of slavery and the heroes and she-roes that fought tirelessly against it. I am hopeful that both The Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act of 2022 (First proposed by Ida B. Wells 120 years ago.) And Juneteenth with its annual nationwide celebration will enlighten, inform, and hopefully lead to real change in our social and justice systems. So, to me … JUNETEENTH IS HOPE.
Ron Scott — Correspondent
When reflecting on the history and significance of Juneteenth as a national holiday we have to connect the dots. It took the Civil War for President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 that ended slavery. However, it took another two years later June 19, 1865, when the Union General Gordon Granger reached the plantations of Galveston, Texas to inform the last state of the Confederacy that slavery was finally over. Well, in reality the practice of chattel slavery was over but becoming FREE with equal rights was quite another story. If that was truly the case Dr. Billy Taylor would have never been compelled to compose the song I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, (Tower 1968), or Maya Angelou would have never written I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Random House 1969). Why didn’t they just give us our 40 acres and mule?
What’s most upsetting is that damn July 4, the great American Independence Day, commemorating the Declaration of Independence ratified on July 4, 1776. The Second Continental Congress declared the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject to the monarch of Britain — they were now united, free, and independent states. Which means people, these newly freed American colonies felt a heartless/terrorist responsibility to keep our ancestors enslaved for another 87 years.
And 156 years later on June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden cheerfully signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law making Juneteenth (June 19) a Federal holiday which has been celebrated annually in various parts of the United States since 1865. Why didn’t they just give us our 40 acres and a mule?
Just one year prior to President Biden’s Juneteenth signing, Reed Hastings, the chief executive officer of Netflix and his wife Patty Quillin, announced they would donate $120 million to HBCU’s (May 25, 2020). One month later in June, Mayor Bowser unveiled the art installation of “Black Lives Matter” artistically painted on the two-block stretch of 16th Street NW that leads to the White House, transforming it to pedestrian-only space and naming the area Black Lives Matter Plaza.
Ironically, while all these artificial modes of APPEASEMENT have taken place, the act of racist terrorism remained at its worst as a young white man was convicted in the mass shooting of nine Black members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. All was well on the American front as police assassinations continued on unarmed black people from Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Breonna Taylor (shot while still in bed), 12-year-old Tamir Rice and the horrendous murder of George Floyd that sparked protests around the world. And most recently a young 18-year-old shooting suspect was accused of killing 10 black people in a Buffalo supermarket (May 14, 2022).
How disdainful that senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), and Tim Scott (R., S.C.) can totally support and vote for making Juneteenth a national holiday but negate any support for legislation that would facilitate police reform, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; agree to come together on some form of gun control legislation; and in the midst of our voting rights being strategically demolished they refuse any support of meaningful voting rights legislation. Why didn’t they just give us our 40 acres and a mule?
In his book Where Do We go From Here: Chaos or Community? (Beacon Press Boston, 1968) Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote,
… Segregationists have declared that democracy is not worth having if it involves equality. The segregationists’ goal is the total reversal of all reforms, with reestablishment of naked oppression and if need be a native form of fascism.
King’s term “segregationists” can be replaced with today’s Republican party and anything Trump.
So on this Juneteenth Day, I will give praise to our ancestors for giving their lives for freedom and essentially all that we have today. Our discussions have to vigorously focus on making this democracy work for us. This time we can’t use Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary” as some popular rhetorical phrase or sound bite for the 6 o’clock news. Juneteenth is a history of our ancestors who were mutilated, raped, lynched and beat worked in the fields from dawn to dusk but remained strong intelligent black souls with integrity honor and resourcefulness. Their improvisational sounds; groans, shouts and hollers, claps and field songs became the rudiments of black music from their shores of Africa to the blues jazz to negro hymns and gospel choirs. Juneteenth represents drummer, composer and activist Max Roach’s album We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid 1960). The struggle started the moment our first African ancestor stood at The door of no return. Juneteenth is more than just a national holiday. It’s the baton we carry as the struggle continues.
Sandhi Smalls Santini — Correspondent
Three years into America’s bloody Civil War, the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Not even 700 words long, this spirited document was draped in religious, political, and most importantly, moral implications, that still resonate even today. The proclamation declared all enslaved African-Americans free. Unfortunately, this revered document was limited, and did not end slavery in the nation. For the enslaved African-Americans in Texas, the human right to freedom would be denied and delayed by two years.
On June 19, 1865, the announcement and enforcement of General Order 3, by Union Army General Gordon Granger, freed all remaining enslaved people in Texas — the last confederate state with institutionalized slavery. To me, Juneteenth rings the sweet sound of freedom, and the end of slavery in America. Sadly, it also marks the beginning of a long and arduous road to complete equality for African-Americans — a road that is today — 157 years later, still littered with thorns.