If you're like I am, it was a total surprise to discover that June 19 is a national holiday, now called Juneteenth, Emancipation Day or "Second" Independence Day, and that all federal offices apparently were closed. My bank would not handle my finances on Monday (the day Juneteenth is observed this year), and, of course, the Post Office would not accept my letters. So, where did Juneteenth come from?
Juneteenth was recognized as a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the law, and it now represents the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the wake of the U.S. Civil War and its violent aftermath. It now joins a list of federal holidays which include New Year's Day, MLK Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday (now President's Day), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everyone should be observing and celebrating the emancipation of African American slaves, but why did it take so long?
Apparently, it doesn't matter much whether an issue is right or wrong, legal or illegal, the law or formality; too many people refuse to change, and continue to abuse human rights in the process. This obviously happened with the issue of slavery.
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 1, 1862, but it didn't go into effect until the first of the following year. While not uniquely so, America's Civil War developed out of the slavery issue. While the Emancipation Proclamation set the African people free from slavery, it did not make them American citizens with full rights, and their abuse continued for decades. Ironically, the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which formally abolished slavery in the U.S., was passed by Congress on Jan. 31, 1864, and was ratified later that same year; but even that did not end slavery. It merely changed its face.
As what was left of the Confederate armies and militia men migrated west into the stronghold of Texas, they took along thousands of enslaved people. At the time African people formerly received the good news that they were free, there were around 250,000 living in Texas alone. Jim Crow laws prevented them from enjoying the freedom to be American citizens, and the harsh "Black codes" penalties economically placed upon the newly freed Black Americans for crimes like loitering and breaking curfew made their lives miserable.
It took President Harry S. Truman issuing the order to desegregate the armed forces and President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, to actually make significant changes in the way Africans were treated in the United States. The Civil Rights Act forced the dismantling of Jim Crow and gave the federal government the power to desegregate public accommodations, fight against workplace discrimination, speed up public school desegregation, mediate racial disputes and to restrict several other discriminatory practices. That's a long time from when President Abraham Lincoln first signed the law to make slaves free.
Texas became involved when Opal Lee led a national campaign for federal recognition of Juneteenth by walking from her home in Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington D.C. every year. It also remembers the statement by Union Army Major General Gordon Granger who marched into Texas with around 2,000 Union Army soldiers, and announced: "In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor." But he also added, "The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages."
Juneteenth was not recognized in Texas until 1979. It was the first to do so. Considering all of the reluctance by people to recognize African people as human beings with rights, much of their fight for recognition extends into most of our lifetimes. And, even when the U.S. Senate unanimously approved the holiday last year, there were 14 Republicans in the House who voted against it; and the term "White Supremacy" is still heard too much in our country. There are still many of us in America who are waiting for our country to finally realize that all of its citizens have basic human rights and are entitled to dignity and equality.
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Robert Box has been a law enforcement chaplain for 29 years. He is a master-level chaplain with the International Conference of Police Chaplains and is an endorsed chaplain with the American Baptist Churches USA. He also currently serves as a deputy sheriff chaplain for the Benton County Sheriff's Office. Opinions expressed in the article are the opinions of the author and not the agencies he serves.