Happy Juneteenth
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By DERON SNYDER (for SRB Communications)
During a keynote address in July 1852, at an event commemorating the Declaration of Independence, Frederick Douglass asked, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” Today, someone might ask, “What is Juneteenth to the enslaved people’s descendants?”
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture says Juneteenth marks America’s “second independence day,” long celebrated in the Black community but largely unknown elsewhere until it became a federal holiday in 2021. But just like the country’s initial Independence Day (July 4), the commemorative date for Black people’s independence (June 19) comes with asterisks.
Contrary to wives’ tales and urban legends, Juneteenth doesn’t celebrate the day when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas finally learned they were free. It’s the day, in 1865, when 2,000 Union troops arrived and finally enforced the newly won freedom as mandated by the Emancipation Proclamation. But even that history lesson isn’t cut-and-dried.
Slavery wasn’t outlawed throughout the country until Congress ratified the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6 of that year – eight months after Confederate forces surrendered the South’s cause. Some states still clung stubbornly to their so-called rights; Delaware didn’t ratify the 13th Amendment until 1901 and Kentucky held out all the way until 1976, finally making slavery illegal.
However, there must be a date to commemorate freedom for African Americans. The Fourth of July doesn’t cut it because many Founding Fathers were enslavers in 1776. Therefore, June 19 (often celebrated on the third Saturday) gets the honor.
Happy Juneteenth!
