Juneteenth: Celebration or Revelation
Long before General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston Bay, June 19, 1865, sun beat hot on black bent-backs, a many sweaty, cotton-pickin’, cane-shuckin’, hard-laborin’ morning in slave-country, Texas. Juneteenth was but a promise waiting on the other side of freedom 2Ã?½ years late and – 40 acres and a mule short.
Grandma Matty broke into hysterical laughter when she heard the man in blue, General Granger, say they were free. Juneteenth would not be born that hot-sweat, stank-dank Texas day. But it would come later; in a year or two after she ran to tell the others the good news of the day. What was an Emancipation Proclamation anyway? All them fancy words, she thought to herself, just to say she was free.
Juneteenth would be about celebrating the harvest of a good crop. Just like the night before there had been a harvest party for all who were still able to do ‘jig-‘n-a-jug’; that’s if you weren’t too tired from slaving all season.
Music played out on cans, pans and at the hands of a tall string-bean banjo man. Jigs were danced and jugs emptied until the slaves fell on the dirt and passed-out where they lay. Stray dogs lapped up any spilled liquor, rolled over and bayed at the moon. Tired, Grandma Matty would turn in early to a night of fitful sleep – riddled with struggle and sprinkled with party music. Matty had been dreaming about Juneteenth before she knew it by name – before she believed in freedom. She had always hoped but she just couldn’t believe it!
Some say the first Juneteenth was held in 1866. Others claim the official celebration wasn’t until 1867, sponsored by the Freedmen’s Bureau at Austin, Texas’ state capital. Within a few years, it became an annual event. At first the celebrations took the shape of self education and political workshops where people learned: how to be free, voting rights, politics, reconstruction and policy. Is that what had been intended all along by the now deceased President Lincoln – to increase the power of his party by an increase in a Black head-count? Or, perhaps to help destabilize rebelling states by creating an uprising with the slave population in those ‘designated’ Johnny Rebel-states and parts therein?
After reviewing the first issued draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, it becomes unclear, what Lincoln’s original motives were. It is open to speculation. If Grandma Matty could read, I wonder what she would make of the listing under paragraph 5 of the Proclamation?
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
If Grandma Matty could only read, she would have seen for herself that many parishes, counties and cities had been exempt from surrendering their slaves. Perhaps, she had been a political pawn. Is today’s Juneteenth a celebration of life or a revelation of manipulation – a military strategy? Grandma Matty may have been ignorant but she was not stupid! In two or three years time, she’ll be able to read that Emancipation Proclamation and Order No. 3 for herself. By that time, the 13th Amendment would have been ratified in December 1865 – eight months after President Lincoln’s death.
Nevertheless, lands were set aside for the annual gatherings and named Emancipation Park, Booker T. Washington Park and so on. No doubt, Grandma Matty soon learned about the complications of freedom and never found her children who had been sold during bondage years.
Today, Juneteenth celebrations are held nationwide. In 1980, George Bush’s home state of Texas made Juneteenth a state paid holiday. This year, Juneteenth goes to Washington D.C. to make a claim for statehood. Many people are climbing on the bandwagon to make it a national holiday. Events in Washington D.C. are from June 14-20. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is a featured speaker and Senate host of the Congressional Reception. In Dallas, Texas, Juneteenth Film Festival will be held June 15-17. Anniston in northeastern Alabama will host its 14th Juneteenth Heritage Festival billing it as: An Emancipation Celebration. On June 17th there will be blues, Hip-hop block party, Stomp!, gospel and a whole lot more at Zinn Park, West 14th St. and Gurnee Ave.
Houston still touts the biggest and baddest of the festivals with, music, dance, food and speeches. Many southern families still prefer simple family gatherings or reunions during this festive time. Eating, drinking, going through old family albums and storytelling rites pass from one generation to the next.
Grandma Matty is a fictionalized character in this article but, everybody knows a Grandma Matty if only through myth. If she where here now (and she is!) she would say, “It doesn’t really matter where you go for Juneteenth, just enjoy yourself – enjoy your freedom!”
