8 minute read
A&C
Juneteenth: More than a Party
And it’s about more than the end of slavery
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A Juneteenth Celebration in Emancipation Park in Houston’s Fourth Ward, 1880
It happened with dizzying speed: Congress made June 19, Juneteenth, a federal holiday on June 16, 2021.
Democrats agreed with President Joe Biden that a Black-themed national holiday accompanying MLK Day was necessary after the protest marches over George Floyd’s murder, and Republicans got on board after former President Donald Trump was caught embarrassed over not knowing Juneteenth landed on the very date he’d planned to begin his reelection campaign. Trump awkwardly suggested making it a national holiday.
And thus, George Floyd, a victim of American racism, and Trump, a bigot, may be the figures most responsible for achieving the bipartisan agreement. That is not an auspicious beginning, it’s a comedy of errors.
I’ve already noted many Black writers have concerns that the full import of Juneteenth is at risk of being sold short. I share those concerns, even as the first national Juneteenth holiday appears to have been a spirited success in Santa Fe and elsewhere. I don’t begrudge mass audiences of all races having a great party—except this particular party is more than that. What is Juneteenth? At least more people now have a basic understanding than ever.
As the story goes, in June, 1865, a Union general informed a group of slaves in Galveston, Texas, that they were free. They belatedly received the news after both the Emancipation Proclamation in January and the Confederate surrender that April. These enslaved people didn’t know the South had lost the Civil War and, after getting the news, they threw a joyous celebration. That’s Jubilation Day, or Juneteenth.
Initially, Juneteenth was celebrated in Texas. But its popularity spread across the country and throughout Black communities in the 1930s and, up until this year, Juneteenth celebrations have largely been intra-communal Black get-togethers with shows presented to Black audiences by Black entertainers.
This history is significant to understanding why Juneteenth survived. Why did this particular event strike a chord and inspire such devotion? And what is it saying? It’s slightly peculiar on the surface level to focus an emancipation event on slaves who were purportedly late learning they were free. For most non-Black Americans to really get it, they have to appreciate the Black folklore tradition (sometimes called signifying) which mingles humor, irony and pathos. The better this is understood, the clearer it is that Juneteenth is a time for celebration— with a slight wink—and social critique. To that end, I recommend two literary texts that capture the spirit of the holiday, firstly, Frederick Douglass’ 1852 oration “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” The great abolitionist asks, “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?” Douglass also calls Independence Day commemoration “a sham.” The other text is Ralph Ellison’s contemporary novel, Juneteenth, published in 1999. It’s a massive satirical tome portraying an America crippled by racism and hypocrisy, swirling around the metaphor of the two-faced Emancipation Proclamation.
Now let’s re-examine the Juneteenth narrative. The Union general who informed the Texas slaves they were “free” was more public functionary than liberator, and his late arrival is proof that Black Americans can’t trust the world at large to define emancipation. The Texas slaves obviously hadn’t noticed significant social changes that would have indicated freedom; the promised “freedom” wasn’t real. Still, the slaves threw a celebration party. Better late than never. Better now than never. They celebrated because they knew they would recognize emancipation beyond a shadow of a doubt when they saw it.
Ironies like these have spoken to Black Americans by portraying an awkward relationship with America; Juneteenth has always been an inherent critique of the Fourth of July (one might even call it a parody) that provided relief and uplifted millions of Blacks who suffered segregation, disenfranchisement, lynching and criminal injustice under a dubious American democracy. Juneteenth picnics and barbecues have been a real-life enactment of Frederick Douglass’ Fourth of July speech, a protest act for Black Americans to enjoy their own commemorations based on a nuanced tale of struggle rather than submit to the Fourth of July’s one-dimensional narrative simplifications. The icing on the cake was that the unofficial Black July Fourth came with our own food and music.
A Juneteenth national holiday can only truly be valuable if all Americans learn from it. Ideally, MLK Day, Black History Month and Juneteenth might make a powerhouse trio instilling civil rights commemoration, historical education and cultural appreciation. Or will we instead see overwhelmingly white Juneteenth audiences who want a good show without thinking too much about slavery’s cruelty in the past—or slavery’s legacy in the present? Will we instead get simplification, silence and cultural appropriation? Looking at MLK Day doesn’t instill total confidence: It’s obvious King’s activist anti-poverty agenda and anti-war stance have been watered down like a bipartisan negotiation.
I have no doubt many legislators who voted for the new holiday merely see it as an opportunity for Blacks to have a barbecue and sing. They simultaneously support measures that discourage Black voting and even ban discussion of racism in classrooms. Such steps make Juneteenth feel like a sentimental travesty. In the segregated past, the politics of the holiday were implicit. Now they need to become explicit. Juneteenth events historically create private spaces for Blacks to air their feelings on oppression and disenfranchisement. Now that it’s a national event, let’s keep its real spirit alive.
-Darryl Lorenzo Wellington
Next Steps for Santa Fe’s Cultural Healing Group Announced
City committee recommends local company Artful Life to lead post-obelisk, “CHART” reconciliation project
BY ALEX DE VORE alex@sfreporter.com
After the city removed a statue of the colonist Diego de Vargas from Cathedral Park in Santa Fe last year—and after the obelisk in the center of the Santa Fe Plaza fell to protesters on Oct. 20, Indigenous Peoples Day 2020 following failed promises from Mayor Alan Webber to remove the monument—the city set about creating a group to help work out the future of such public spaces.
Dubbed Culture, History, Art, Reconciliation and Truth, the derisively-called CHART commission has faced a long road of delayed votes and public pressure since then (and Webber faces a lawsuit). But following a request for proposals the city sent out on March 8, a selection committee is recommending homegrown organization Artful Life to take over the process of deciding what’s next.
Artful Life was founded in 2015 by Santa Fean Valerie Martinez, a former Santa Fe poet laureate from 2008 to 2010 who worked eight years for local nonprofit Littleglobe as well as the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque and numerous other arts and organizing groups. Martinez co-directs Artful Life alongside local writer and longtime arts organization worker Jenice Gharib.
According to the Artful Life website, the organization’s goal is to create “transformational change through the beauty and power of creative collaboration.”
“We’ll be taking a multi-pronged approach to this—a survey, one-on-one interviews, larger gatherings…And many of these will look a little bit different than the ways people engage in public dialogue,” Martinez said in a Zoom meetand-greet with reporters last week. “We see sometimes the way public dialogue can devolve into not very fruitful conversations, so we spend a lot of time planning these gatherings to prevent this from happening.”
Gharib echoed those sentiments, adding: “We’ve had many long conversations about this and we’re totally committed to the integrity of the project and all of these events. We’re very aware of the complexity of the issue here in Santa Fe.”
Artful Life faces several hurdles, beginning with an expected vote before the City Council’s Finance Committee on July 6. From there, the Quality of Life Committee meets July 7 and the Public Works and Utilities Committee on July 12. The full council could take it up as soon as July 14, and $254,000 has been proposed for budgeting should the process move forward.
Martinez says that if Artful Life is approved, the organization would start by assembling a team through an opencall process. In particular, she’d like young people to apply. Beyond that, the early stages would mainly focus on fact-finding and public input, including from Indigenous New Mexicans who have historically been left out of similar conversations.
“We do understand that, in the past, the engagement has been defined as public forums, town halls, and those are just fine, but in our experience, only certain people have the free time to go to those,” Martinez tells SFR. “We have connections with dozens of individuals and organizations in Santa Fe, so we will be reaching out to them about ways they would like for us to engage in their communities. We’re willing to have meals with people in their own homes if they like; we need to be very responsive to what people tell us about how they want to be met and do everything we can to meet with them.”
-Valerie Martinez, founder of Artful Life
COURTESY ARTFUL-LIFE.ORG
Artful Life founder Valerie Martinez was the city’s poet laureate from 2008 to 2010 and previously worked for nonprofit Littleglobe and the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
KATHERINE LEWIN
